£« 


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LIBRARY 


OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA. 

RT    OK 


Received 
Accessions  No. \ 


OF  THR 

UNIVERSITY 


WAS   MAN   CREATED? 


BY 


HENRY  A.  MOTT,  JR.,  KM.,  PH.D.,  ETC., 

Member  of  the  American  Chemical  Society,    Member  of  the  Berlin    Chemical  Society, 

Member  of  the  New  York  Academy  of  Sciences,  Member  of  the  American 

Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  Member  of  the 

American  Pharmaceutical  Association,  Fellow 

of  the    Geographical    Society, 

Etc.,    Etc. 

AUTHOR  OF  THE  "CHEMISTS'  MANUAL,"  "ADULTERATION  OF  MILK,"  "ARTIFICIAL  BUTTER, 
"  TESTING  THE  VALUE  OF  RIFLES  BY  FIRING  UNDER  WATER,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


NEW   YORK: 
GRISWOLD    &    COMPANY, 

150  NASSAU  STREET. 
1880. 


COPYRIGHT  BY 
HENRY    A.    MOTT,    JR., 

1880. 


TROVV'S 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  Co., 
205-213  East  nth  St., 

NEW  YORK. 


Electrotyped  by  SMITH  &  McDouGAL,  82  Beekman  Street,  N.  Y. 


PREFACE. 


r  I  ^HIS  work  was  originally  written  to  be  delivered  as  a 
lecture  ;  but  as  its  pages  continued  to  multiply,  it  was 
suggested  to  the  author  by  numerous  friends  that  it  ought  to 
be  published  in  book-form ;  this,  at  last,  the  author  concluded 
to  do.  This  work,  therefore,  does  not  claim  to  be  an  exhaustive 
discussion  of  the  various  departments  of  which  it  treats  ;  but 
rather  it  has  been  the  aim  of -the  author  to  present  the  more 
interesting  observations  in  each  department  in  as  concise  a  form 
as  possible.  The  author  has  endeavored  to  give  credit  in  every 
instance  where  he  has  taken  advantage  of  the  labors  of  others. 
This  work  is  not  intended  for  that  class  of  people  who  are  so 
absolutely  certain  of  the  truth  of  their  religion  and  of  the  immor- 
tality that  it  teaches,  that  they  have  become  unqualified  to  enter- 
tain or  even  perceive  of  any  scientific  objection  ;  for  such  people 
may  be  likened  unto  those  who,  "  Seeing,  they  see,  but  will  not 
perceive  ;  and  hearing,  they  hear,  but  will  not  understand." 

This  work  is  written  for  the  man  of  culture  who  is  seeking 
for  truth — believing,  as  does  the  author,  that  all  truth  is  God's 
truth,  and  therefore  it  becomes  the  duty  of  every  scientific  man 
to  accept  it ;  knowing,  however,  that  it  will  surely  modify  the 
popular  creeds  and  methods  of  interpretation,  its  final  result 
can  only  be  to  the  glory  of  God  and  to  the  establishment  of  a 
more  exalted  and  purer  religion.  All  facts  are  truths ;  it  con- 
sequently follows  that  all  scientific  facts  are  truths — there  is  no 
half-way  house — a  statement  is  either  a  truth  or  it  is  not  a 


vi  PREFACE. 

truth,  according  to  the  law  of  non-contradiction.  If,  therefore, 
we  find  tabulated  amongst  scientific  facts  (or  truths)  a  statement 
which  is  not  a  fact,  it  is  not  science  ;  but  all  statements  which 
are  facts  it  naturally  follows  are  truths,  and  as  such  must  be 
accepted,  no  matter  how  repulsive  they  may  at  first  seem 
to  some  of  our  poetical  imaginings  and  pet  theories.  We 
cannot  help  but  sympathize  with  the  feelings  which  prompted 
President  Barnard  to  write  the  following  lines,  still  we  will 
see  he  was  too  hasty :  "  Much  as  I  love  truth  in  the 
abstract,"  he  says,  "I  love  my  hope  of  immortality  more/' 
*  *  *  He  maintained  that  it  is  better  to  close  one's  eyes 
to  the  evidences  than  to  be  convinced  of  the  truth  of  certain 
doctrines  which  Tie  regards  as  subversive  of  the  fundamentals  of 
Christian  faith.  "  If  this  (is  all)  is  the  best  that  science  can  give 
me,  then  I  pray  no  more  science.  Let  me  live  on  in  my  simple 
ignorance,  as  my  fathers  lived  before  me  ;  and  when  I  shall  at 
length  be  summoned  to  my  final  repose,  let  me  still  be  able  to 
fold  the  drapery  of  my  couch  about  me,  and  lie  down  to  pleasant, 
even  though  they  be  deceitful,  dreams."  *  The  limitations  to 
the  acceptance  of  truth  that  President  Barnard  makes  is  wrong  ; 
for,  as  Professor  Winchell  has  said,  "  we  think  it  is  a  higher 
aspiration  to  wish  to  know  ( the  truth  and  the  whole  truth/  At 
the  same  time,  we  have  not  the  slightest  apprehension  that  the 
whole  truth  can  ever  dissipate  our  faith  in  a  future  life."  f  Let 
us  "  Prove  all  things  and  hold  fast  unto  that  which  is  good," 
recognizing  the  fact  that  "  the  truth-seeker  is  the  only  God- 
seeker." 

AUTHOR. 
JANUARY  25,  1880. 

*  The  Law  of  Disease,  in  College  Courant,  Vol.  XIV. 
f  Winchell.     Evolution,  p.  113. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

PREFACE v,  vi 

CHART  OF  MAN'S  DEVELOPMENT 10-13 

PROTOPLASM 18 

CELLS 20 

LIFE 22 

VITAL  FORCE 24 

ANALYSIS  OF  MAN 26 

UNITY  OF  ORGANIC  AND  INORGANIC  NATURE. 28 

SPONTANEOUS  GENERATION. 30 

THE  COMING  INTO  EXISTENCE  OF  MAN 33 

EVOLUTION 58 

THEORIES  OF  THE  WORLD'S  FORMATION 64 

THE  BIBLE , 70 

KANT'S  COSMOGONY 76,  86 

NATURE  A  PERPETUAL  CREATION 82 

LAWS  OF  EVOLUTION 90 

SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 92 

RUDIMENTARY  ORGANS 94 

REPRODUCTION  BY  MEANS  OF  EGGS 99 

DOUBLE-SEXED  INDIVIDUALS 99 

INHERITANCE 100 

ARTIFICIAL  MONSTERS lOfi 

ACQUIRED  QUALITIES 106 

GEOLOGICAL  RECORD 108 

ONTOGENY .  110 


VJii  TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  MAN 115 

MUSCULAR  FORCE.  .  .•. : 116 

THOUGHT  FORCE 118 

THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  ANIMALS 122 

THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  A  SAVAGE 126 

LANGUAGE 128 

FAITH 130 

TRUE  CONSCIENCE 132 

BELIEF  IN  GOD 136 

PROOF  OF  THE  EXISTENCE  OF  GOD 138 

UNITY  OF  ALL  NATURE 140 

SOUL 142 

THE  FINITE  SENSES  OF  MAN 144 

THE  UNSEEN  UNIVERSE 148 

MANIFESTATIONS  OF  GOD ! . .  150 

HOPE  OF  IMMORTALITY.  . . 142-151 


WAS  MAN  CREATED? 


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WAS    MAN   CREATED? 


WHAT   SCIENCE  CAN  ANSWER. 


object  of  science  is  not  to  find  out  what  we  like  or 
what  we  dislike — the  object  of  science  is  Truth."  In  the 
discussion  of  the  subject,  "  Was  Man  Created  ? "  our  object 
will  be — not  to  study  the  many  ways  God  might  have  created 
him,  but  the  way  he  actually  did  create  him,  for  all  ways  would 
be  alike  easy  to  an  Omnipotent  Being. 

Let  us  look  at  man  and  ask  the  question  :  What  is  there 
about  him  which  would  need  an  independent  act  of  creation  any 
more  than  about  the  "  mountain  of  granite  or  the  atom  of  sand"? 
The  answer  comes  back :  Besides  life,  man  has  many  mental 
attributes.  Let  us  direct  our  attention  at  first  to  the  grand 
phenomena  ojf  life,  and  then  to  man's  attributes. 

To  discover  the  nature  of  life,  to  find  out  what  life  really  is, 
it  would  be  folly  to  commence  by  comparing  man,  the  perfection 
of  living  beings,  with  an  inorganic  or  inanimate  substance  like  a 
brick,  to  discover  the  hidden  secret ;  for,  as  Professor  Orton  says  :* 
"  That  only  is  essential  to  life  which  is  common  to  all  forms  of 
life.  Our  brains,  stomach,  livers,  hands  and  feet  are  luxuries. 
They  are  necessary  to  make  us  human,  but  not  living  beings." 
Instead  of  man,  then,  it  will  be  necessary  for  us  to  take  the 

*  Comparative  Zoology,  p.  43.     1876. 


16  PROTOPLASM. 

simplest  being  which  possesses  such  a  phenomena  ;  and  such  are 
the  little  homogeneous  specks  of  protoplasm,  constituting  the 
Group  Monera,  which  are  entirely  destitute  of  structure,  and  to 
which  the  name  "  Cytode  "  has  been  given.  In  the  fresh  waters 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Jena  minute  lumps  of  protoplasm  were 
discovered  by  Haeckel,  which,  on  being  examined  under  the  most 
powerful  lens  of  a  microscope,  were  seen  to  have  no  constant 
form,  their  outlines  being  in  a  state  of  perpetual  change,  caused 
by  the  protrusion  from  various  parts  of  their  surface  of  broad 
lobes  and  thick  finger-like  projections,  which,  after  remaining 
visible  for  a  time,  would  be  withdrawn,  to  make  their  appearance 
again  on  some  other  part  of  the  surface.  To  this  little  mass  of 
protoplasm  Haeckel  has  given  the  name  Protanceba  primitiva. 
These  little  lumps  multiply  by  spontaneous  division  into  two 
pieces,  which,  on  becoming  dependent,  increase  in  size  and  acquire 
all  the  characteristics  of  the  parent.  From  this  illustration,  it 
will  be  seen  that  "reproduction  is  a  form  of  nutrition  and  a 
growth  of  the  individual  to  a  size  beyond  that  belonging  to  it  as 
an  individual,  so  that  a  part  is  thus  elevated  into  a  (new)  whole." 
It  is  to  this  simple  state  of  the  monera  the  fertilized  egg  of 
any  animal  is  transformed — the  germ  vesicle  ;  the  original  egg 
kernel  disappears,  and  the  parent  kernel  (cytococcus)  forms  itself 
anew  ;  and  it  is  in  this  condition,  a  non-nucleated  ball  of  proto- 
plasm, a  true  cytod,  a  homogeneous,  structureless  body,  without 
different  constituent  parts,  that  the  human  child,  as  well  as  all 
other  living  beings,  take  their  first  steps  in  development.  No 
matter  how  wonderful  this  may  seem,  the  fact  stares  us  in  the 
face  that  the  entire  human  child,  as  well  as  every  animal  with  all 
their  great  future  possibilities,  are  in  their  first  stage  a  small  ball 
of  this  complex  homogeneous  substance.  Whether  we  consider 
"  a  mere  infinitesimal  ovoid  particle  which  finds  space  and  dura- 
tion enough  to  multiply  into  countless  millions  in  the  body  of  a 


WAS    MAN    CHEAT  ED?  37 

living  fly,  and  then  of  the  wealth  of  foliage,  the  luxuriance  of 
flower  and  fruit  which  lies  between  this  bald  sketch  of  a  plant 
and  the  gigantic  pine  of  California,  towering  to  the  dimensions 
of  a  cathedral  spire,  or  the  Indian  fig  which  covers  acres  with  its 
profound  shadow,  and  endures  while  nations  and  empires  come 
and  go  around  its  vast  circumference,"  or  we  look  "  at  the 
other  half  of  the  world  of  life,  picturing  to  ourselves  the  great 
finner  whale,  hugest  of  beasts  that  live  or  have  lived,  disporting 
his  eighty  or  ninety  feet  of  bone,  muscle,  and  blubber,  with  easy 
roll,  among  the  waves  in  which  the  stoutest  ship  that  ever  left 
dock-yard  would  founder  hopelessly,  and  contrast  him  with  the 
invisible  animalcule,  mere  gelatinous  specks,  multitudes  of 
which  could  in  fact  dance  upon  the  point  of  a  needle  with  the 
same  ease  as  the  angels  of  the  schoolman  could  in  imagination  ; — 
with  these  images  before  our  minds,  it  would  be  strange  if  we 
did  not  ask  what  community  of  form  or  structure  is  there  be- 
tween the  fungus  and  the  fig-tree,  the  animalcule  and  the  whale  ? 
and,  a  fortiori,  between  all  four  ?  Notwithstanding  these  ap- 
parent difficulties,  a  threefold  unity — namely,  a  unity  of  power 
or  faculty,  a  unity  of  form,  and  a  unity  of  substantial  composi- 
tion— does  pervade  the  whole  living  world."  *  And  this  unit  is 
Protoplasm.  So  we  see  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  retreat  to  our 
protoplasm  as  a  naked  formless  plasma,  if  we  would  find  freed 
from  all  non-essential  complications  the  agent  to  which  has  been 
assigned  the  duty  of  building  up  structure  and  of  transforming 
the  energy  of  lifeless  matter  into  the  living.  Even  Goethe  (in 
1807)  almost  stated  this  when  he  said  :  "  Plants  and  animals, 
regarded  in  their  most  imperfect  condition,  are  hardly  distin- 
guishable. This  much,  however,  we  may  say,  that  from  a  con- 
dition in  which  plant  is  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  animal, 
creatures  have  appeared,  gradually  perfecting  themselves  in  two 
*  Huxley.  Physical  Basis  of  Life.* 


18  PROTOPLASM. 

opposite  directions — the  plant  is  finally  glorified  into  the  tree, 
enduring  and  motionless  ;  the  animal  into  the  human  being  of 
the  highest  mobility  and  freedom." 

Let  us  examine  for  a  moment  this  substance  Protoplasm,  and 
see  in  what  way  it  differs  from  inorganic  matter,  or  in'  what  way 
the  animate  differs  from  the  inanimate — the  living  from  the  dead. 

Felix  Dujardin,  a  French  zoologist  (1835)  pointed  out  that 
the  only  living  substance  in  the  body  of  rhizopods  and  other  in- 
ferior primitive  animals,  is  identical  with  protoplasm.  He  called 
it  sarcode.  Hugo  von  Mohl  (1846)  first  applied  the  name  proto- 
plasm to  the  peculiar  serus  and  mobile  substance  in  the  interior 
of  vegetable  cells ;  and  he  perceived  its  high  importance,  but 
was  very  far  from  understanding  its  significance  in  relation  to  all 
organisms.  Not,  however,  until  Ferdinand  Cohn  (1850)  and 
more  fully  Franz  linger  (1855)  had  established  the  identity  of 
the  animate  and  contractile  protoplasm  in  vegetable  cells  and  the 
sarcode  of  the  lower  animals,  could  Max  Shultz  in  1856-61  elab- 
orate the  protoplasm  theory  of  the  sarcode  so  as  to  proclaim 
protoplasm  to  be  the  most  essential  and  important  constituent 
of  all  organic  cells,  and  to  show  that  the  bag  or  husk  of  the  cell, 
the  cellular  membrane  and  intercellular  substance,  are  but  second- 
ary parts  of  the  cell,  and  are  frequently  wanting.  In  a  similar 
manner  Lionel  Beale  (1862)  gave  to  protoplasm,  including  the 
cellular  germ,  the  name  of  "  germinal  matter,"  and  to  all  the 
other  substance  entering  into  the  composition  of  tissue,  being 
secondary,  and  produced  the  name  of  "  formed  matter." 

"  Wherever  there  is  life  there  is  protoplasm  ;  wherever  there 
is  protoplasm,  there,  too,  is  life."  The  physical  consistence  of 
protoplasm  varies  with  the  amount  of  water  with  which  it  is 
combined,  from  the  solid  form  in  which  we  find  it  in  the  dormant 
state  to  the  thin  watery  state  in  which  it  occurs  in  the  leaves  of 
valisneria. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  19 

As  to  its  composition,  chemistry  can  as  yet  give  but  scanty 
information  ;  it  can  tell  that  it  is  composed  of  carbon,  hydrogen, 
oxygen,  nitrogen,  sulphur,  and  phosphorus,  and  it  can  also  tell 
the  percentage  of  each  element,  but  it  cannot  give  more  than  a 
formula  that  will  express  it  as  a  whole,  giving  no  information  as 
to  the  nature  of  the  numerous  albuminoid  substances  which  com- 
pose it.  Edward  Cope,  in  his  article  on  Comparative  Anatomy,* 
gives  the  formula  for  protoplasm  (as  a  whole),  C24HI7N3084- 
S  and  P,  in  small  quantities  under  some  circumstances.  It  is 
therefore,  he  says,  a  nitryl  of  cellulose  :  C24H2002-f  3NH3. 
According  to  Mulder  the  composition  of  albumen,  one  of  the 
class  of  protein  substances  to  which  protoplasm  belongs,  is 
10(C40H3IN50,2)H-S2P.  Protoplasm  is  identical  in  both  the 
animal  and  vegetable  kingdom  ;  it  behaves  the  same  from  what- 
ever source  it  may  be  derived  towards  several  re-agents,  as  also 
electricity.  Is  it  possible,  then,  that  the  protoplasm  which  pro- 
duces the  mould  is  exactly  the  same  composition  as  that  which 
produces  the  human  child  ?  The  answer  is  YES,  so  far  as  the 
elements  are  concerned,  but  the  proportions  of  carbon,  hydrogen, 
etc.,  must  enter  into  an  infinite  number  of  diverse  stratifications 
and  combination  in  the  production  of  the  various  forms  of  life. 
Professor  Frankland,  speaking  of  protein,  for  instance,  says  it  is 
capable  of  existing  under  probably  at  least  a  thousand  isomeric 
forms.  Protoplasm  may  be  distinguished  under  the  microscope 
from  other  members  of  the  class  to  which  it  belongs,  on  account 
of  the  faculty  it  possesses  of  combining  with  certain  coloring 
matters,  as  carmine  and  aniline  ;  it  is  colored  dark-red  or  yellow- 
ish-brown by  iodine  and  nitric  acid,  and  it  is  coagulated  by  alco- 
hol and  mineral  acids  as  well  as  by  heat.  It  possesses  the  quality 
of  absorbing  water  in  various  quantities,  which  renders  it  some- 
times extremely  soft  and  nearly  liquid,  and  sometimes  hard  and 

*  Johnson,  Ency. 


20  CELLS. 

firm  like  leather.  Its  prominent  physical  properties  are  excit- 
ability and  contractility,  which  Kiihne  and  others  have  especially 
investigated.  The  motion  of  protoplasm  in  plants  was  first  made 
known  by  Bonaventure  Corti  a  century  ago  in  the  Charoe  plants  ; 
but  this  important  fact  was  forgotten,  and  it  had  to  be  discovered 
by  Treviranus  in  1807.  The  regular  motion  of  the  protoplasm, 
forming  a  perfect  current,  may  be  seen  in  the  hairs  of  the  nettle, 
and  weighty  evidence  exists  that  similar  currents  occur  in  all 
young  vegetable  cells.  "  If  such  be  the  case,"  says  Huxley,  "  the 
wonderful  noonday  silence  of  a  tropical  forest  is,  after  all,  due 
only  to  the  dullness  of  our  hearing,  and  could  our  ears  catch  the 
murmur  of  these  tiny  maelstroms,  as  they  whirl  in  innumerable 
myriads  of  living  cells,  which  constitute  each  tree,  we  should  be 
stunned  as  with  a  roar  of  a  great  city/' 

One  step  higher  in  the  scale  of  life  than  the  monera  is  the 
vegetable  or  animal  cell,  which  arose  out  of  the  monera  by  the 
important  process  of  segregation  in  their  homogeneous  viscid 
bodies,  the  differentiation  of  an  inner  kernel  from  the  surrounding 
plasma.  By  this  means  the  great  progress  from  a  simple  cytod 
(without  kernel)  into  a  real  cell  (with  kernel)  was  accomplished. 
Some  of  these  cells  at  an  early  stage  encased  themselves  by  se- 
cr^jting  a  hardened  membrane  ;  they  formed  the  first  vegetable 
cells,  while  others  remaining  naked  developed  into  the  first  ag- 
gregate of  animal  cells.  The  vegetable  cell  has  usually  two  con- 
centric coverings — cell- wall  and  primordial  utricle.  In  animal 
cells  the  former  is  wanting,  the  membrane  representing  the 
utricle.  As  a  general  fact,  also,  animal  cells  are  smaller  than 
vegetable  cells.  Their  size*  varies  greatly,  but  are  generally  in- 
visible to  the  naked  eye,  ranging  from  -^  to  -j^^nr  °f  an  ^ncn 
in  diameter.  About  four  thousand  of  the  smallest  would  be 
required  to  cover  the  dot  put  over  the  letter  i  in  writing.  The 

*  Comparative  Anatomy— Orton,  p.  32. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  21 

shape  of  cells  varies  greatly ;  the  normal  form,  though,  is  spheroidal 
as  in  the  cells  of  fat,  but  they  often  become*  many-sided — some- 
times flattened  as  in  the  cuticle,  and  sometimes  elongated  into  a 
simple  filament  as  in  fibrous  tissue  or  muscular  fibre. 

The  cell,  therefore,  is  extremely  interesting,  since  all  animal 
and  vegetable  structure  is  but  the  multiplication  of  the  cell  as  a 
unit,  and  the  whole  life  of  the  plant  or  animal  is  that  of  the  cells 
which  compose  them,  and  in  them  or  by  them  all  its  vital  pro- 
cesses are  carried  on.  It  may  sound  paradoxical  to  speak  of  an 
animal  or  plant  being  composed  of  millions  of  cells  ;  but  beyond 
the  momentary  shock  of  the  paradox  no  harm  is  done. 

The  cell,  then,  can  be  regarded  as  the  basis  of  our  physiologi- 
cal idea  of  the  elementary  organism  ;  but  in  the  animal  as  well 
as  in  the  plant,  neither  cell- wall  nor  nucleus  is  an  essential  con- 
stituent of  the  cell,  inasmuch  as  bodies  which  are  unquestionably 
the  equivalents  of  cells — true  morphological  units — may  be  mere 
masses  of  protoplasm,  devoid  alike  of  cell-wall  or  nucleus.  For 
the  whole  living  world,  then,  the  primary  and  a  mental  form  of  life 
is  merely  an  individual  mass  of  protoplasm  in  which  no  further 
structure  is  discernible.  Well,  then,  has  protoplasm  been  called 
the  "  universal  concomitant  of  every  phenomena  of  life."  Life 
is  inseparable  from  this  substance,  but  is  dormant  unless  excited 
by  some  external  stimulant,  such  as  heat,  light,  electricity,  food, 
water,  and  oxygen. 

Although  we  have  seen  that  the  life  of  the  plant  as  well  as 
of  the  animal  is  protoplasm,  and  that  the  protoplasm  of  the 
plant  and  that  of  the  animal  bear  the  closest  resemblance,  yet 
plants  can  manufacture  protoplasm  out  of  mineral  compounds, 
whereas  animals  are  obliged  to  procure  it  ready  made,  and  hence 
in  the  end  depend  on  plants.  "  Without  plants,"  says  Professor 
Orton,  "  animals  would  perish  ;  without  animals,  plants  had  no 

*  Analytical  Anatomy  and  Phys. — Cutter,  p.  16. 


22  LIFE 

need  to  be."  The  food  of  a  plant  is  a  matter  whose  energy  is  all 
expended — is  a  fallen  weight.  But  the  plant  organism  receives  it, 
exposes  it  to  the  sun's  rays,  and  in  a  way  mysterious  to  us  con- 
verts the  actual  energy  of  the  sunlight  into  potential  energy 
within  it.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  life  has  been  termed  "  bot- 
tled-sunshine." 

The  principal  food  of  the  plant  consists  of  carbon  united  with 
/• 

oxygen  to  form  carbonic  acid,  hydrogen  united  with  oxygen  1,0 
form  water,  and  nitrogen  united  with  hydrogen  to  form  ammo- 
nia. These  elements  thus  united,  which  in  themselves  are  per- 
fectly lifeless,  the  plant  is  able  to  convert  into  living  protoplasm. 
"Plants  are,"  says  Huxley,  "the  accumulators  of  the  power 
which  animals  distribute  and  disperse."  Boussengault  found 
long  since  that  peas  sown  in  pure  sand,  moistened  with  distilled 
water  and  fed  by  the  air,  obtained  all  the  carbon  necessary  for 
their  development,  flowering,  and  fructification.  Here  we  see  a 
plant  which  not  only  maintains  its  vigor  on  these  few  substances, 
but  grows  until  it  has  increased  a  millionfold  or  a  million-mil- 
lionfold  the  quantity  of  protoplasm  it  originally  possessed,  and 
this  protoplasm  exhibits  the  phenomena  of  life.  This  and  other 
proof  led  M.  Dumas  to  say  :  "  From  the  loftiest  point  of  view, 
and  in  connection  with  the  physics  of  the  globe,  it  would  be  im- 
perative on  us  to  say  that  in  so  far  as  their  truly  organic  elements 
are  concerned,  plants  and  animals  are  the  offspring  of  the  air." 

Schleiden,*  speaking  of  the  haymakers  of  Switzerland  and  the 
Tyrol,  says  :  "  He  mows  his  definite  amount  of  grass  every  year 
on  the  Alps,  inaccessible  to  cattle,  and  gives  not  back  the  smallest 
quantity  of  organic  substance  to  the  soil.  Whence  comes  the 
hay,  if  not  from  the  atmosphere." 

It  has  been  seen,  then,  that  plants  can  manufacture  pro- 
toplasm, a  faculty  which  animals  are  not  possessed  of ;  they  at 

*  Biography  of  a  Plant. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  23 

best  can  only  convert  dead  protoplasm  into  living  protoplasm. 
Thus  when  vegetable  or  meat  is  cooked  their  protoplasm  dies, 
but  is  not  rendered  incompetent  of  resuming  its  old  functions  as 
a  matter  of  life.  "  If  I,"  says  Huxley,  "  should  eat  a  piece  of 
cooked  mutton,  which  was  once  the  living  protoplasm  of  a  sheep, 
the  protoplasm,  rendered  dead  by  cooking,  will  be  changed  into 
living  protoplasm,  and  thus  I  would  transubstantiate  sheep  into 
man  ;  and  were  I  to  return  to  my  own  place  by  sea  and  undergo 
shipwreck,  the  crustacean  might  and  probably  would  return  the 
compliment,  and  demonstrate  our  common  nature  by  turning  my 
protoplasm  into  living  lobster."  As  has  been  said  before,  where 
there  are  life  manifestations  there  is  protoplasm.  Life  is  regarded 
by  one  class  of  thinkers  as  the  principle  or  cause  of  organization  ; 
and  according  to  the  other,  life  is  the  product  or  effect  of  organ- 
ization. We  must,  however,  agree  with  Professor  Orton,  who 
says  :  "  Life  is  the  effect  of  organization,  not  the  result  of  it. 
Animals  do  not  live  because  they  are  organized,  but  are  organized 
because  they  are  alive."  In  whatever  way  it  is  looked  at,  life  is 
but  a  forced  condition.  "  The  more  advanced  thinkers,  then,  in 
science  to-day,"  says  Barker,  "  therefore  look  upon  the  life  of  the 
living  form  as  inseparable  from  its  substance,  and  believe  that 
the  former  is  purely  phenomenal  and  only  a  manifestation  of  the 
latter.  During  the  existence  of  a  special  force  as  such,  they  re- 
tain the  term  only  to  express  the  sum  of  the  phenomena  of  living 
beings.  The  word  life  must  be  regarded,  then,  as  only  a  general- 
ized expression  signifying  the  sum-total  of  the  properties  of  mat- 
ter possessing  such  organization." 

In  what  manner,  then,  does  this  matter,  possessing  the  phe- 
nomena of  life,  differ  from  inorganic  matter,  or  in  what  manner 
does  living  matter  differ  from  matter  not  living  ?  The  forces 
which  are  at  work  on  the  one  side  are  at  work  on  the  other.  The 
phenomena  of  life  are  all  dependent  upon  the  working  of  the 


24  VITAL    FORCE. 

same  physical  and  chemical  forces  as  those  which  are  active  in 
the  rest  of  the  world.  It  may  be  convenient  to  use  the  terms 
"vitality"  and  "vital  force"  to  denote  the  cause  of  certain 
groups  of  natural  operations,  as  we  employ  the  names  of  "  elec- 
tricity "  and  "  electrical  force  "  to  denote  others  ;  but  it  ceases  to 
do  so,  if  such  a  name  implies  the  absurd  assumption  that  either 
"  electricity "  or  "  vitality  "  is  an  entity,  playing  the  part  of  a 
sufficient  cause  of  electrical  or  vital  phenomena.  A  mass  of  living 
protoplasm  is  simply  a  machine  of  great  complexity,  the  total 
result  of  the  work  of  which,  or  its  vital  phenomena,  depend  on 
the  one  hand  upon  its  construction,  and  on  the  other  upon  the 
energy  supplied  to  it ;  and  to  speak  of  "  vitality  "  as  anything 
but  the  names  of  a  series  of  operations  is  as  if  one  should  talk 
of  the  "horologity"  of  a  clock.* 

When  hydrogen  and  oxygen  are  united  by  an  electrical  spark 
water  is  produced  ;  certainly  there  is  no  parity  between  the  liquid 
produced  and  the  two  gases.  At  32°  F.,  oxygen  and  hydrogen 
are  elastic  gaseous  bodies,  whose  particles  tend  to  fly  away  from 
one  another  ;  water  at  the  same  temperature  is  a  strong  though 
brittle  solid.  Such  changes  are  called  the  properties  of  water. 
It  is  not  assumed  that  a  certain  something  called  "  acquosity  " 
has  entered  into  and  taken  possession  of  the  oxide  of  hydrogen  as 
soon  as  formed,  and  then  guarded  the  particles  in  the  facets  of 
the  crystal  or  amongst  the  leaflets  of  the  hoar-frost.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  hoped  molecular  physics  will  in  time  explain  the  phe- 
nomena. "  What  better  philosophical  status,"  says  Huxley, f 
u  has  vitality  than  acquosity.  If  the  properties  of  water  may 
be  properly  said  to  result  from  the  nature  and  disposition  of  its 
molecules,  I  can  find  no  intelligible  ground  for  refusing  to  say 
that  the  properties  of  protoplasm  result  from  the  nature  and  dis- 
position of  its  molecules." 

*  See  Huxley — Invertebrate  Animals,  Anatomy  of.        f  Phys.  Basis  of  Life. 


OF  THB 


I7BRSITT 


WAS    MAN    CREATEDr.rj;  25 


"To  distinguish  the  living  from  the  dead  body,"  Herbert 
Spencer  says,  "  the  tree  that  puts  out  leaves  when  the  spring 
brings  change  of  temperature,  the  flower  which  opens  and  closes 
with  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun,  the  plant  that  droops 
when  the  soil  is  dry  and  re-erects  itself  when  watered,  are  consid- 
ered alive  because  of  these  produced  changes  ;  in  common  with 
the  zoophyte,  which  contracts  on  the  passing  of  a  cloud  over  the 
sun,  the  worm  that  comes  to  the  ground  when  continually  shaken, 
and  the  hedgehog  which  rolls  itself  up  when  attacked." 

"  Seeds  of  wheat  produced  antecedent  to  the  Pharaohs,"  says 
Bastain,*  "remaining  in  .Egyptian  catacombs  through  century 
after  century  display  of  course  no  vital  manifestations,  but  never- 
theless retain  the  potentiality  of  growing  into  perfect  plants 
whenever  they  may  be  brought  into  contact  with  suitable  ex- 
ternal conditions.  We  must  presume  that  either  (1)  during  this 
long  lapse  of  centuries  the  '  vital  principle'  of  the  plant  has 
been  imprisoned  in  the  most  dreary  and  impenetrable  of  dun- 
geons, whither  no  sister  effluence  from  the  general  c  soul  of  na- 
ture '  could  affect  it  ;  or  else  (2)  that  the  germ  of  the  future  living 
plant  is  there  only  in  the  form  of  an  inherited  structure,  whose 
molecular  complexities  are  of  such  a  kind  that,  after  moisture 
has  restored  mobility  to  its  atoms,  its  potential  life  may  pass  into 
actual  life.  Some  of  the  lowest  forms  of  animals  and  plants 
have  such  a  tenacity  to  life  that  their  vital  manifestation  may 
be  kept  in  abeyance  for  five,  ten,  fifteen,  or  even  twenty  years. 
Though  not  living  any  more  than  the  wheat,  they  also  retain  the 
potentiality  of  manifestation  of  life  ;  and  for  each  alike,  in  order 
that  this  potentiality  may  pass  into  actuality,  the  first  requisition 
is  water  with  which  to  restore  them  to  that  possibility  of  molecu- 
lar rearrangement  under  the  influence  of  incident  forces,  of  which 

*  Beginnings  of  Life,  p.  104,  Vol.  I. 


ANALYSIS    OF    A    MAN. 

(BY  PROP.  MILLER.) 
A  man  5  feet  8  inches  high,  weighing  154  pounds. 


Ibs. 

oz. 

grs. 

Oxygen  

..Ill     ... 

...      0     ... 

....      0 

Hydrogen  

..     14     ... 

...      0     ... 

....      0 

Carbon  

.  .     21     ... 

...      0     .. 

....      0 

Nitrogen  

..       3     ... 

.  .  .     10 

...      0 

Inorganic  elements  in  the  ash  : 

Phosphorus  

..       1     ... 

...      2     ... 

...     88 

..      2     ... 

...      0    ... 

...      0 

Sulphur  

..       0     ... 

...      0     ... 

...  219 

Chlorine  

..       0     ... 

...      2     ... 

...    47 

1  ounce  =  437  grains. 

Sodium  

.      0     ... 

...      2     ... 

...  116 

..      0     ... 

...      0    ... 

...  100 

Potassium  

.       0     ... 

...      0     ... 

...  290 

Magnesium  

.      0     ... 

...      0     ... 

...     12 

Silica  

.       0     ... 

,.-.      0     ... 

...      2 

Total.. 

.  154 

0 

0 

The  quantity  of  the  substances  found  in  a  human  body 
weighing  154  pounds  : 


Fat 


ter 

Ibs. 
Ill 

oz. 

o 

grs. 

o 

atin  

15 

0 

o 

umen         . 

..   .   .       4 

3 

o 

4     

4     ... 

0 

...     12 

o 

o 

...     .      7     

9 

o 

Total.  .  , 

.  154 

0 

0 

(From  the  "  CHEMISTS'  MANUAL.") 
26 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  27 

the  absence  of  water  had  deprived  them,  and  without  which 
life  in  any  real  sense  is  impossible." 

Professor  Owen*  says  :  "  There  are  organisms  (vibrieo,  rotifer, 
macrobiotus,  etc.)  which  we  can  devitalize  and  revitalize — devive 
and  revive — many  times.  As  the  dried  animalcule  manifest  no 
phenomena  suggesting  any  idea  contributing  to  form  the  com- 
plex one  of  '  life '  in  my  mind,  I  regard  it  to  be  as  completely 
lifeless  as  is  the  drowned  man,  whose  breath  and  heat  have  gone, 
and  whose  blood  has  ceased  to  circulate.  *  *  *  The  change 
of  work  consequent  on  drying  or  drowning  forthwith  begins  to 
alter  relations  or  compositions,  and  in  time  to  a  degree  adverse 
to  resumption  of  the  vital  form  of  force,  a  longer  period  being 
needed  for  this  effect  in  the  rotifer,  a  shorter  one  in  the  man, 
still  shorter  it  may  be  in  the  amoeba." 

"  There  is,"  says  Dumas,f  "  an  eternal  round  in  which  death 
is  quickened  and  life  appears,  but  in  which  matter  merely  changes 
its  place  and  form." 

Let  us  now  compare  the  inorganic  world  with  the  organic — 
the  inanimate  with  the  animate — and  see  if  there  does  exist  an 
inseparable  boundary  between  them.  The  fundamental  proper- 
ties of  every  natural  body  are  matter,  form,  and  force.  One  im- 
portant point  to  be  noticed  is,  that  the  elements  which  compose 
all  animate  bodies  are  the  very  elements  that  help  to  build  up 
the  inanimate  bodies.  No  new  elements  appear  in  the  vegetable 
or  animal  world  which  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  inorganic  world. 
The  difference  between  animate  and  inanimate  bodies,  therefore, 
is  certainly  not  in  the  elements  which  form  them,  but  in  the  molec- 
ular combination  of  them  ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  molecular 
physics  will,  at  some  not  far  distant  time,  enlighten  us  as  to  the 
peculiar  state  of  aggregation  in  which  the  molecules  exist  in  living 

*  Monthly  Micros.  Jour.,  May  1,  '69,  p.  294. 

f  Chem.  and  Phys.  Balance  of  Organic  Nature,  1848,  p.  48  (trans.). 


28    UNITY  OF   ORGANIC  AND   INORGANIC   NATURE. 

matter.  As  to  the  form,  it  is  impossible  to  find  any  essential 
difference  in  the  external  form  and  inner  structure  between  in- 
organic and  organic  bodies — for  the  simple  monad,  which  is  as 
much  a  living  organism  as  the  most  complex  being,  is  nothing 
but  a  homogeneous,  structureless  mass  of  protoplasm.  But  just 
as  the  inorganic  substance,  according  to  well-defined  laws,  elab- 
orates its  structure  into  a  crystal  of  great  beauty,  so  does  the 
protoplasm  elaborate  itself  into  the  most  beautiful  of  all  struc- 
tures— the  cell  unit.  Just  as  gold  and  copper  crystallizes  in  a 
geometrical  form,  a  cube — bismuth  and  antimony  in  a  hexagonal, 
iodine  and  sulphur  in  a  rhombic  form — so  we  find  among  radio- 
laria,  and  among  other  protista  and  lower  forms,  that  they  "  may 
be  traced  to  a  mathematical,  fundamental  form,  and  whose  form 
in  its  whole,  as  well  as  in  its  parts,  is  bounded  by  definite  geo- 
metrically determinable  planes  and  angles."  Now,  as  to  the 
forces  of  the  two  different  groups  of  bodies.  Surely  the  construc- 
tive force  of  a  crystal  is  due  to  the  chemical  composition,  and  to 
its  material  constitution.  As  the  shape  of  the  crystal  and  its 
size  are  influenced  by  surrounding  circumstances,  there  is,  there- 
fore, an  external  constructive  force  at  work.  The  only  difference 
between  the  growth  of  an  organism  and  that  of  a  crystal  is,  that 
in  the  former  case,  in  consequence  of  its  semi-fluid  state  of  ag- 
gregation, the  newly  added  particles  penetrate  into  the  interior 
of  the  organism  (inter-susception),  whereas  inorganic  substances 
receive  homogeneous  matter  from  without,  only  by  opposition  or 
an  addition  of  new  particles  to  the  surface.  "  If  we,  then,  desig- 
nate the  growth  and  the  formation  of  organisms  as  a  process  of 
life,  we  may  with  equal  reason  apply  the  same  term  with  the 
developing  crystal."  It  is  for  these  and  other  reasons,  demon- 
strating as  they  do  the  "  unity  of  organic  and  inorganic  nature," 
the  essential  agreement  of  inorganic  and  organic  bodies  in 
matter,  form,  and  force,  which  led  Tyndall*  to  say  :  "  Abandon- 

*  Inaugural  Address,  Aug.  19,  1874. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  29 

ing  all  disguise,  the  confession  that  I  feel  bound  to  make  before 
you  is,  that  I  prolong  the  vision  backward  across  the  boundary 
of  experimental  evidence,  and  discern  in  that  matter  which  we 
in  our  ignorance,  and  notwithstanding  our  professed  reverence  for 
its  Creator,  have  hitherto  covered  with  opprobrium,  the  promise 
and  potency  of  every  form  and  quality  of  life." 

Returning  now  to  our  protoplasm,  let  us  ask  the  question  : 
Where  did  it  come  from  ?  or,  How  did  it  come  into  existence  ? 
Though  chemical  synthesis  has  built  up  a  number  of  organic 
substances  which  have  been  deemed  the  product  of  vitality,  yet, 
up  to  the  present  day,  the  fact  stands  out  before  us  that  no  one 
has  ever  built  up  one  particle  of  living  matter,  however  minute, 
from  lifeless  elements. 

The  protoplasm  of  to-day  is  simply  a  continuation  of  the 
protoplasm  of  other  ages,  handed  down  to  us  through  periods  of 
undefinable  and  indeterminable  time. 

The  question  of  where  protoplasm  came  from — how  it  arose — 
chemistry  is  unable  to  answer  ;  but  the  question  is  answered, 
probably,  by  spontaneous  generation.  Only  the  merest  particle 
of  living  protoplasm  was  necessary  to  be  formed  from  lifeless 
matter  in  the  beginning  ;  for,  in  the  eyes  of  any  consistent  evo- 
lutionist, any  further  independent  formation  would  be  sheer  waste, 
as  the  hypothesis  of  evolution  postulates  the  unlimited,  though 
perhaps  not,  indefinite  modifiability  of  such  matter.  As  we 
have  seen  that  there  exists  no  absolute  barrier  between  organic 
and  inorganic  bodies,  it  is  not  so  difficult  to  conceive  that  the 
first  particle  of  protoplasm  may  have  originated,  under  suitable 
conditions,  out  of  inorganic  or  lifeless  matter.  But  the  causes 
which  have  led  to  the  origination  of  this  particle,  it  may  be  said, 
we  know  absolutely  nothing — as  in  the  formation  of  the  crystal 
and  the  cell— the  ultimate  causes  remain  in  both  cases  concealed 
from  us.  i 


30  SPONTANEOUS    GENERATION. 

At  the  time  in  the  earth's  history  when  water,  in  a  liquid 
state,  made  its  appearance  on  the  cooled  crust  of  the  earth,  the 
carhon  probahly  existed  as  carbonic  acid  dispersed  in  the  atmos- 
phere ;  and  from  the  very  best  of  grounds,  it  is  reasonable  to  as- 
sume that  the  density  and  electric  condition  of  the  atmosphere 
were  quite  different,  as  also  the  chemical  and  physical  nature  of 
the  primeval  ocean  was  quite  different.  In  any  case,  therefore, 
even*  if  we  do  not  know  anything  more  about  it,  there  remains 
the  supposition,  which  can  at  least  not  be  disputed,  that  at  that 
time,  under  conditions  quite  different  from  those  of  to-day,  a 
spontaneous  generation,  which  is  now  perhaps  no  longer  possible, 
may  have  taken  place.  This  point  is  now  conceded  by  most  all 
of  the  advanced  scientists  of  the  day,  arid  is  absolutely  necessary 
for  the  completion  of  the  hypothesis  of  evolution. 

The  answer  may  come  to  this— Well,  suppose  the  first  proto- 
plasm did  originate  by  spontaneous  generation,  where  did  the 
elements  or  force  come  from  which  compose  it  ? 

Science  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  coming  into  existence  of 
matter  or  force,  for  she  proves  both  to  be  indestructible  ;  when 
they  disappear,  they  do  so  only  to  reappear  in  some  other  form. 
The  coming  into  existence  of  matter  and  force,  as  also  the  ulti- 
mate cause  of  all  phenomena,  is  beyond  the  domain  of  scientific 
inquiry.  Science  has  only  to  do  with  the  coming  in  of  the  form 
of  matter,  not  the  coming  in  of  its  existence. 

*  Haeckel— Ilist.  of  Creation. 


Fig.    I. 


Pio.  I.— A  Moneron  (Protamoeba)  In  act  of  reproduction ;  A,  the  whole  Moneron,  which 
moveH  Hke  ordinary  Ama>ba.  by  meant*  of  variable  proccHsoH  :  J?,  a  contraction  around  UB 
circumference  parta  it  into  two  halves  ;  C,  the  two  halves  ueparato,  aud  each  now  forms 
independent  individuals.  (Much  enlarged.)— Haeckel. 


Fig.    II. 


FIG.  TL.—A,  in  a  crawling  Armuba  (much  enlarged).— Haeckel.  The  whole  organism  has  the 
form-value;  of  a  naked  cell  and  moveH  about  by  mean*  of  changeable  procoHHoe,  which  are 
extended  from  the  protophiHmic  body  and  again  drawn  in.  In  the  inside  in  the  bright- 
colored,  rounditth  cell-kernel  or  nucleus.  2f,  Egg-cell  of  a  Chalk  Sponge  (Olynthus).— 
Uaeckel.  r 


Fig.     III. 


III.—  Roprfsont-*  tin;  next,  higher  H  I  u^o,  Mulberry  -germ 
or  Morula 


81 


THE    COMING   INTO    EXISTENCE    OF    MAN, 

BY  THE  SLOW  PROCESS  OF  DEVELOPMENT. 

~TT  is  necessary  now  to  take  up  the  little  mass  of  living  matter, 
-*-  admitting  its  coming  into  existence  by  spontaneous  genera- 
tion as  probable,  and  so  probable  that  it  almost  amounts  to  a 
certainty,  and  follow  it  through  the  many  changes  it  is  about  to 
make  under  the  influence  of  the  laws  which  govern  evolution 
until  it  has  culminated  in  man,  and  these  laws  still  acting  on 
the  brain  of  man,  perfecting  it,  and  leading  him  on  to  the  com- 
prehension of  a  grander  and  nobler  conception  of  the  Almighty 
and  of  his  works.  . 

The  start,  then,  must  be  made  with  a  homogeneous  mass  of 
protoplasm,  such  as  the  existing  Protamceba  primitiva  of  the 
present  day,  which  is  a  structureless  organism  without  organs, 
and  which  came  into  existence  during  the  Laurentian  period. 
It  is  to  this  simplified  condition,  as  I  have  previously  stated,  all 
fertilized  eggs  return  before  they  commence  to  develop. 

The  first  process  of  adaptation  effected  by  the  monera  must 
have  been  the  condensation  of  an  external  crust,  which,  as  a 
protecting  covering,  shut  in  the  softer  interior  from  the  hostile 
influences  of  the  outer  world.  As  soon  as,  by  condensation  of 
the  homogeneous  moneron,  a  cell-kernel  arose  in  the  interior, 
and  a  membrane  arose  on  the  surface,  all  the  fundamental  parts 
of  the  unit  were  then  furnished.  Such  a  unit  was  an  organism, 


34:       THE    COMING    INTO    EXISTENCE    OF    MAN. 

similar  to  the  white  corpuscle  of  the  blood,  and  called  amoebce. 
Here  we  have  two  different  stages  of  evolution  ;  the  protoplasma 
(better  plasson)  of  the  cytod  undergoes  differentiation,  and  is 
split  up  into  two  kinds  of  albuminous  substances — the  inner 
cell-kernel  (nucleus)  and  the  outer  cell-substance  (protoplasma). 
Edward  von  Benden,  in  his  work  upon  Gregarince,  first  clearly 
pointed  out  this  fact,  that  we  must  distinguish  thoroughly  be- 
tween the  plasson  of  cytods  and  the  protoplasm  of  cells. 

An  irrefutable  proof  that  such  single-celled  primaeval  animals 
like  the  amoeba  really  existed  as  the  direct  ancestors  of  man,  is 
furnished,  according  to  the  fundamental  law  of  biogeny,  by  the 
fact  that  the  human  egg  is  nothing  more  than  a  simple  cell. 

The  next  step  taken  in  advance  is  the  division  of  the  cell  in 
two  ; — there  arise  from  the  single  germinal  spot  two  new  kernel 
specks,  and  then,  in  like  manner,  out  of  the  germinal  vesicle  two 
new  cell-kernels.  The  same  process  of  cell-division  now  repeats 
itself  several  times  in  succession,  and  the  products  of  the  division 
form  a  perfect  union.  This  organism  may  be  called  a  commu- 
nity of  amoebce  (synamoebae). 

From  the  community  of  amoeba  morula,  now  arose  ciliated 
larvae.  The  cells  lying  on  the  surface  extended  hair-like  pro- 
cesses or  fringes  of  hair,  which,  by  striking  against  the  water, 
kept  the  whole  body  rotating — the  lanceolate  animals  or  amphi- 
oxus  were  thus  first  produced.  Here  we  find  from  the  synamcebae 
which  crept  about  slowly  at  the  bottom  of  the  Laurentian  pri- 
meval ocean  by  means  of  movements  like  those  of  an  amoeba, 
that  the  newly-formed  planaaa  by  the  vibrating  movements  of 
the  cilia,  the  entire  multicellular  body  acquired  a  more  rapid 
and  stronger  motion,  and  passed  over  from  the  creeping  to  the 
swimming  mode  of  locomotion.  The  planaea  consisted,  then,  of 
two  kinds  of  cells — inner  ones  like  the  amoebae,  and  external 
"ciliated  cells."  The  ancestors  of  man,  which  possessed  the 


Fig.    I. 


Fig.    II. 


FIG.  I.— The  Norwegian  Flimmer-ball  (Magosphcera  Planula),  swimming  by  means  of  its 
vibratile  fringes  ;  seen  from  the  surface. — Haeckel. 

FIG.  2. — The  same  in  section.  The  pear-shaped  cells  are  seen  bound  together  in  the  centre  of 
the  gelatinous  sphere  by  a  thread-like  process.  Each  cell  contains  both  a  kernel  and  a 
contractile  vesicle.  (PLAN.EA  SERIES.)  -Haeckel. 


Fig.    III. 


Fig.    IV. 


FIGS.  HI  and  IV.— Represents  GASTR.EA  SERIES.    The  body  consists  merely  of  a  simple 
primitive  intestine,  tee  wall  of  which  is  formed  of  two  primary  germ-layers.—  Haeckel. 


35 


Fig.    I. 


Fig.    II. 


Fig.    III. 


PIGS.  I  and  II.— Represents  the  next  mgher  stage  (Tubu- 
laria).  Fig.  1,  a  simple  Gliding  Worm  (Rhabdocoelum) ; 
m,  mouth  ;  sd,  throat-epithelium  ;  sm,  throat-muscles  ; 
d,  stomach-intestine  ;  nc,  kidney-ducts  ;  nm,  opening 
of  the  kidneys  ;  aw,  eye  ;  na,  nose-pit.  Fig.  II,  the 
same  Gliding  Worm,  showing  the  remaining  organs; 
g,  brain  ;  aw,  eye ;  na,  nose-pit ;  n,  nerves  ;  A,  testes  ; 
3 ,  male  opening  ;  ?  ,  female  opening ;  e,  ovary  ;  /, 
ciliated  outer-skin.— HaecJcel. 

FIG.  III.— Represents  Soft  Worms  (Scolecida)  and  is  a 
young  Acorn  Worm  (Balanoglossus),  after  Agassiz. 
r,  acorn-like  proboscis  ;  A,  collar  ;  k,  gill-openings  and 

gill-arches  of  the  anterior  intestine,  in  a  long  row,  one  behind  the  other,  on  each  side  ; 
digestive  posterior  intestine,  filling  the  greater  part  of  the  body  cavity ;  v,  intestinal  vessel, 
lying  between  two  parallel  folds  of  the  skin  ;  a,  anus. 


37 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  39 

form  value  of  the  ciliated  larva,  is,  of  course,  extinct  at  the 
present  day. 

Out  of  the  planula,  then,  develops  an  exceedingly  important 
animal  form — the  gastrula  (that  is,  larva  with  a  stomach  or  in- 
testine), which  resemhles  the  planula,  but  differs  essentially  in 
the  fact  that  it  encloses  a  cavity  which  opens  to  the  outside  by  a 
mouth.  The  wall  of  the  progaster  (primary  stomach)  consists 
of  two  layers  of  cells :  an  outer  layer  of  smaller  ciliated  cells 
(outer  skin  or  ectoderm),  and  of  an  inner  layer  of  large  non-cili- 
ated cells  (inner  skin  or  entoderm).  This  exceedingly  important 
larval  form,  the  "  gastrula,"  makes  its  appearance  in  the  onto- 
genesis of  all  tribes  of  animals.  These  gastrgeada  must  have 
existed  during  the  older  primordial  period,  and  they  must  have 
also  included  the  ancestors  of  man.  A  certain  proof  of  this  is 
furnished  by  the  amphioxus,  which,  in  spite  of  its  blood  relation- 
ship to  man,  still  passes  through  the  stage  of  the  gastrula  with 
a  simple  intestine  and  a  double  intestinal  wall.*  By  motion  of 
the  cilia  or  fringes  of  the  skin-layer,  the  gastraea  swam  freely  about 
in  the  Laurentian  ocean. 

The  development  of  the  gastrsea  now  deviated  in  two  direc- 
tions— one  branch  of  gastrgeads  gave  up  free  locomotion,  adhered 
to  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  and  thus,  by  adopting  an  adhesive  mode 
of  life,  gave  rise  to  the  proascus,  the  common  primary  form  of 
the  animal  plants  (zoophyta).  The  other  branch  was  originated 
by  the  formation  of  a  middle  germ-layer  or  muscular  layer,  and 
also  by  the  further  differentiation  of  the  internal  parts  into  vari- 
ous organs  ;  more  especially,  the  first  formation  of  a  nervous 
system,  the  simplest  organs  of  sense,  the  simplest  organs  for  se- 
cretion (kidneys),  and  generation  (sexual  organs) — this  branch  is 
the  prothelmis,  the  common  primary  worms  (vermes).  Like  the 
turbellaria  of  the  present  day,  the  whole  surface  of  their  body 
*  See  Haeckel— Evol.  of  Man. 


40       THE    COMING    INTO    EXISTENCE    OF    MAN. 

was  covered  with  cilia,  and  they  possessed  a  simple  body  of  an 
oval  shape,  entirely  without  appendages.  These  acoelomatous 
worms  did  not  as  yet  possess  a  true  body  cavity  (cceloni)  nor 
blood.  No  member  of  the  next  higher  animals  are  in  existence, 
neither  are  there  any  fossil  remains,  owing  to  the  soft  nature  of 
their  body.  They  are  therefore  called  soft  worms,  or  scoleceda. 
They  developed  out  of  the  turbellaria  of  the  sixth  stage  by  form- 
ing a  true  body  cavity  (a  coelom)  and  blood  in  their  interior. 
The  nearest  still  living  ccelomati  is  probably  the  acorn  worms 
(balanoglossus).  The  form  value  of  this  stage  must,  moreover, 
have  been  represented  by  several  different  intermediate  stages. 

Out  of  the  four  different  groups  of  the  worm  tribe,  the  four 
higher  tribes  of  the  animal  kingdom  were  developed — the  star- 
fishes (echinoderma)  and  insects  (arthropoda)  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  molluscs  (mollusca)  and  vertebrated  animals  (vertebrata) 
on  the  other.  Out  of  certain  coalomati,  the  most  ancient  skull- 
less  vertebrata  were  directly  developed.  Among  the  ccelomati  of 
the  present  day,  the  ascidians  are  the  nearest  relatives  of  this  ex- 
ceedingly remarkable  worm,  which  connect  the  widely  differing 
classes  of  invertebrate  and  vertebrate  animals.  To  these  animals 
have  been  given  the  name  of  sack-worms  (himatega).  They 
originated  out  qf  the  worms  of  the  seventh  stage  by  the  forma- 
tion of  a  dorsal  nerve  marrow  (medulla  tube),  and  by  the  forma- 
tion of  the  spinal  rod  (chorda  dorsalis)  which  lies  below  it.  It 
is  just  the  position  of  this  central  spinal  rod  or  axial  skeleton, 
between  the  dorsal  marrow  on  the  dorsal  side  and  the  intestinal 
canal  on  the  ventral  side,  which  is  most  characteristic  of  all  ver- 
tebrate animals,  including  man,  but  also  of  the  larvse  of  the 
ascidia. 

We  now  come  to  the  second  half  of  the  series  of  human  an- 
cestors. The  skull-less  animal  lancelet,  which  is  still  living, 
affords  a  faint  idea  of  the  members  of  this  group  (acrania). 


Fig.    I. 


Fig.     III. 


FIG.  I.— Appendicularia,  seen  from  the  left  side,  w,  mouth ;  &,  gill  intes- 
tine ;  0,  oesophagus ;  r,  stomach ;  a,  anus  ;  w,  nerve  ganglia  (upper 
throat-knots) ;  g,  ear  vesicle ;  /,  ciliated  groove  under  the  gill ;  A, 
heart ;  e,  ovary  ;  c,  notochord ;  s.  tail.—Haeckel. 

FIG.  II.— Represents  Sack  Worms  (Himatega),  and  is  the  structure  of  an 

Ascidian,  seen  from  the  left.    s&,  gill-sac  ;  «,  stomach  ;  i,  large  intestine  ;  c,  heart ;  t,  testes ; 
vd,  seed  duct ;  o,  ovary  ;  o',  matured  eggs  in  the  body  cavity.    After  Milne- Edwards. 

FIG.  III.— Represents  the  ACRANIA  SERIES.  Lancelot  (Amhioxus  Lanceolatus),  twice  the  actual 
size,  seen  from  the  left,  a,  mouth-opening,  surrounded  by  cilia  ;  6,  anal-opening ;  c,  ven- 
tral-opening (Porus  abdominalis)  ;  d,  gill-body  ;  e,  stomach  ;  /,  liver-coecum  ;  0,  large 
intestine  ;  h,  coelum  ;  i,  notochord  (under  it  the  aorta) ;  #,  arches  of  the  aorta  ;  I,  main 
gill-artery  ;  m,  swellings  on  its  branches  ;  n.  hollow  vein  ;  o,  intestinal  vein.— Haeckel. 


41 


Fig.    I. 


FIG.  I.— Represents  the  MONOKHINA  SERIES.    Lamprey  (Petromyzon  Americanos) 
from  the  Atlantic.— Or  ton. 


Fig.    II. 


FIG.  II.— .Represents  the  Selachii.    Shark  <Carcharias  vulgaris) 
from  the  Atlantic.— Orton. 


Fig.    III. 


FIG.  III.— Represents  the  Mud-fish  (Dipneusta).    Lepidosiren  annecteus,  one-fourth  natural 
size  ;  African  rivers.— Orton.    Form  a  link  between  typical  fishes  and  the  Amphibians. 


43 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  45 

Since  this  little  animal,  in  its  earliest  embryonic  state,  entirely 
agrees  with  the  ascidia,  and  in  its  further  development  shows 
itself  to  be  a  true  vertebrate  animal,  it  forms  a  direct  transition 
from  the  vertebrata  to  the  invertebrata. 

At  this  stage,  most  probably,  the  separation  of  the  two  sexes 
began.  The  simpler  and  most  ancient  form  of  sexual  propaga- 
tion is  through  double-sexed  individuals  (hermaphroditismus). 
It  occurs  in  the  great  majority  of  plants,  but  only  in  a  minority 
of  animals  ;  for  example,  in  the  garden-snails,  leeches,  earth- 
worms and  many  other  worms.  Every  single  individual  among 
hermaphrodites  produces  within  itself  materials  of  both  sexes — 
egg  and  sperm.  In  most  of  the  higher  plants  every  blossom 
contains  both  the  male  organs  (stamen  and  anther)  and  the 
female  organs  (style  and  germ) .  Every  garden-snail  produces 
in  one  part  of  its  sexual  gland  eggs,  and  in  another  sperm. 
Many  hermaphrodites  can  fructify  themselves  ;  in  others,  how- 
ever, copulation  and  reciprocal  fructification  of  both  hermaphro- 
dites are  necessary  for  causing  the  development  of  the  eggs. 
This  latter  case  is  evidently  a  transition  to  sexual  separation 
(gonoehorismus). 

Out  of  the  members  of  the  last  group  arose  animals  with 
skulls  or  craniata,  having  round  mouths,  and  which  are  divided 
into  hags  and  lampreys.  The  hags  (myxinoides)  have  long 
cylindrical  worm-like  bodies.  The  lampreys  (petromyxontes) 
includes  those  well  known  "nine  eyes  "  common  at  the  seaside. 

These  single-nostril  animals  (monorrhina)  arose  during  the 
primordial  period  out  of  the  skull-less  animals  by  the  anterior  end 
of  the  dorsal  marrow  developing  into  the  brain,  and  the  anterior 
end  of  the  dorsal  skull  into  the  skull.  By  the  division  of  the 
single  nostril  of  the  members  of  the  last  group  into  two  lateral 
halves,  by  the  formation  of  a  sympathetic  nervous  system,  a  jaw 
skeleton,  a  swimming  bladder  and  two  pairs  of  legs  (breast  fins  or 


46        THE    COMING    INTO    EXISTENCE    OF    MAN. 

fore-legs,  and  ventral  fins  or  hind-legs),  arose  the  primaeval  fish 
(selachii),  which  is  best  represented  by  the  still-living  shark 
(squalacei). 

Out  of  the  primaeval  fish  arose  the  mud-fish  (dipneusta), 
which  is  very  imperfectly  represented  by  the  still-living  sala- 
mander fish  ;  the  primaeval  fish  adapting  itself  to  land,  and  by 
the  transforming  of  the  swimming  bladder  into  an  air-breathing 
lung,  and  of  the  nasal  cavity  (which  was  now  open  into  the 
mouth  cavity)  into  air-passages.  Their  organization  might,  in 
some  respect,  be  like  the  ceratodus  and  proloptems  ;  but  this  is 
not  certain. 

The  dipneusta  is  an  intermediate  stage  between  the  selachii 
and  amphibia.  Out  of  the  dipneusta  arose  the  class  of  amphibia, 
having  five  toes  (the  pentadactyla).  The  gill  amphibians  are 
man's  most  ancient  ancestors  of  the  class  amphibia.  Besides 
possessing  lungs  as  well  as  the  mud-fish,  they  retain  throughout 
life  regular  gills  like  the  still-living  proteus  and  axolotl.  Most 
gilled  batrachia  live  in  North  America.  The  paddle-fins  of  the 
dipneusta  changed  into  five-toed  legs,  which  were  afterwards 
transmitted  to  the  higher  vertebrata  up  to  man. 

The  gilled  amphibia  (sozobrachia)  of  the  last  group  finally 
lost  their  gills  but  retained  their  tail,  and  tailed  amphibians 
(sozura)  were  produced,  such  as  the  salamander  and  newt  of  the 
present  day.  Out  of  the  sozura  originated  the  primaeval  amniota 
(protamnia)  by  the  complete  loss  of  the  gills  by  the  formation 
of  the  amnion  of  the  cochlea,  and  of  the  round  window  in  the 
auditory  organ,  and  of  the  organ  of  tears.  Out  of  the  protamnia 
originated  the  primary  mammals  (promammalia).  The  most 
closely  related  were  the  ornithostoma  ;  they  differed  through 
having  teeth  in  their  jaws. 

No  fossil  remains  of  the  primary  mammals  have  as  yet  been 
found,  although  they  lived  during  the  trias  period— they  pos- 


Fig.    I. 


Fig.    II. 


FIGS.  I  and  II.— The  Ceratodus  Forsteri  occur  in  the  swamps  of  Southern  Australia. 
Form  transition  between  fishes  and  Amphibia.  -Haeckel. 


47 


Fig.    I. 


FIG.  I.— Represents  the  Gilled  Amphibians  (Soyobranchia).    The  Axolotl  (Siredon  pisciforme), 
after  Tegetmeier.    The  ordinary  form  with  persistent  branchiae. 


Fig.    II. 


FIG.  II.— Proteus  Anguinue.    Europe.— Orton. 


Fig.    III. 


FIG.  in.— Represents  the  Tailed  Amphibians  (Soyura).    Great  Water-Newt 
(Triton  cristatus),  after  Bdl. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  51 

sessed  a  very  highly  developed  jaw.  From  the  primary  mammal 
arose  the  pouched  animals  (marsupialia).  Numerous  representa- 
tives of  this  group  still  exist :  kangaroos,  pouched  rats  and 
pouched  dogs.  The  marsupial  animals  developed,  very  probably, 
in  the  mesolithic  epoch  (during  the  Jura)  out  of  the  cloacal 
animals  ;  by  the  division  of  the  cloaca  into  the  rectum  and  the 
urogenital  sinus,  by  the  formation  of  a  nipple  on  the  mammary 
gland,  and  the  partial  suppression  of  the  clavicles. 

From  the  marsupialia  originated  a  most  interesting  small 
group  of  semi-apes  (prosimias),  for  they  are  the  primary  forms  of 
genuine  apes  and  consequently  of  man.  They  developed  out  of 
handed,  or  ape-footed  marsupials  (pedumana),  of  rat-like  appear- 
ance, by  the  formation  of  a  placenta,  the  loss  of  the  marsupium 
and  the  marsupial  bones,  and  by  the  higher  development  of  the 
commissures  of  the  brain.  The  still-living  short-footed  semi-ape 
(brachytarsi),  especially  the  muki,  indie  and  lori,  possess  possi- 
bly a  faint  resemblance. 

Out  of  the  semi-apes  developed  two  classes  of  genuine  apes  ; 
but  as  the  narrow-nosed  or  catarrhini  class  are  the  only  ones 
related  to  man,  the  others  will  not  be  considered.  These 
narrow-nosed  apes  originated  by  the  transformation  of  the  jaw, 
and  by  the  claws  on  the  toes  changing  into  nails.  The  still-liv- 
ing long-tail  nose-apes  and  holy  apes  (semnopithecus)  probably 
resembled  the  oldest  ancestors  of  this  group. 

The  tailed  apes  by  the  loss  of  their  tail  and  some  of  their 
hair  covering,  and  by  the  excessive  development  of  that  portion 
of  their  brain  above  the  facial  portion  of  the  skull,  developed 
into  the  man-like  apes  (anthropoides) — such  as  the  gorilla  and 
chimpanzee  of  Africa,  and  the  orang  and  gibbon  of  Asia.  The 
human  ancestors  of  this  group  existed  during  the  miocene  period. 
From  the  anthropoides  developed  the  ape-like  men  (pithecan- 
thropi) during  the  tertiary  period.  The  speechless  primaeval 


52       THE    COMING    INTO    EXISTENCE    OF    MAN. 

men  (alali),  then,  is  the  connecting  link  between  the  man-like 
apes  and  man.  The  fore-hand  of  the  anthropoides  became  the 
human  hand,  their  hinder-hand  a  foot  for  walking.  They  did 
not  possess  the  articulate  human  language  of  words  and  the 
higher  developments,  as  consciousness  and  the  formation  of  ideas 
must  have  been  very  imperfect. 

Out  of  the  pithecanthropi  men  developed  genuine  man, 
by  the  development  of  the  animal  language  of  sounds  into  a 
connected  or  articulate  language  of  words  —  the  brain  also 
developed  higher  and  higher.  This  transition  took  place,  prob- 
ably, at  the  beginning  of  the  quaternary  period,  or  possibly  in 
the  tertiary. 

We  have  now  very  briefly  reviewed  the  principal  outlines  of 
the  ancestors  of  man,  showing  that  man  has  developed  from  the 
little  mass  of  protoplasm,  as  have  all  animals  and  plants.  He 
therefore  was  not  spontaneously  created,  but  was  developed. 
The  question  is  often  asked  by  simple-minded  people,  with  much 
delight,  Why  do  we  not  behold  the  interesting  spectacle  of  the 
transformation  of  a  chimpanzee  into  a  man,  or  conversely  of  a 
man  by  retrogression  into  an  orang  ? — it  only  shows  that  they  are 
not  acquainted  with  the  first  principles  of  the  Doctrine  of 
Descent.  "  Not  one  of  the  apes,"  says  Schmidt,  "  can  revert  to 
the  state  of  his  primordial  ancestors,  except  by  retrogression — 
by  which  a  primordial  condition  is  by  no  means  attained — he 
cannot  divest  himself  of  his  acquired  characters  fixed  by  hered- 
ity, nor  can  he  exceed  himself  and  become  man  ;  for  man  does 
not  stand  in  the  direct  line  of  development  from  the  ape.  The 
development  of  the  anthropoid  apes  has  taken  a  lateral  course 
from  the  nearest  human  progenitors,  and  man  can  as  little  be 
transformed  into  a  gorilla  as  a  squirrel  can  be  changed  into 
a  rat." 


53 


Fig.    I. 


FIG.  I.— Represents  Primaeval  Amniota  (Protamnia). 
Lizard  (Lacerta),  after  Orton. 


Fig.    II. 


FIG.  II.— Represents  Primary  Mammals  (Promammalia).    AMNIOTA  SEBIBS. 
Duck-billed  Platypus  (Ornithorhynchus  paradoxus).— Haeckel. 


55 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  57 

"  Feeling  evidently,"  *  says  Haeckel,  "  rather  than  under- 
standing, induces  most  people  to  combat  the  theory  of  their 
1  descent  from  apes/  It  is  simply  because  the  organism  of  the 
ape  appears  a  caricature  of  man,  a  distorted  likeness  of  ourselves 
in  a  not  very  attractive  form  ;  because  the  customary  aesthetic 
ideas  and  self-glorification  of  man  are  touched  by  this  in  so 
sensitive  a  point,  that  most  men  shrink  from  recognizing  their 
descent  from  apes.  It  seems  much  pleasanter  to  be  descended 
from  a  more  highly  developed  divine  being,  and  hence,  as  is  well 
known,  human  vanity  has  from  the  earliest  times  flattered  itself 
by  assuming  the  original  descent  of  the  race  from  gods  or 
demi-gods." 

*  Evolution  of  Man,  Vol.  II,  p.  445. 


EVOLUTION 


TN  the  last  chapter  a  description  was  given  of  the  various 
stages  in  man's  development,  from  the  microscopic  monad 
up.  It  will  be  necessary  now  to  describe  briefly  the  various 
laws  which  have  governed  this  evolutionary  chain  from  the 
monad  to  man.  But  before  proceeding  directly  to  the  subject, 
let  us  look  at  the  doctrine  of  evolution  as  a  whole,  and  trace  it 

first  in  the  formation  of  the  world,  t 

% 

*The  doctrine  ofievolution  is  also  called  the  theory  of  develop- 
ment— it  must  not,  however,  be  confused  with  Darwinism — for 
they  are  not  exactly  synonymous.  Darwinism  is  an  attempt  to 
explain  the  laws  or  manner  of  evolution.  Strictly  speaking,  only 
the  theory  of  selection  should  be  called  Darwinism,  which  was 
established  in  1859.  The  theory  of  descent,  or  transmutation 
theory,  or  doctrine  of  filiation,  should  properly  -be  called 
Lamarckism,  who  for  the  first  time  worked  out  the  theory  of 
descent  as  an  independent  scientific  theory  of  the  first  order,  and 
as  the  philosophical  foundation  of  the  whole  science  of  biology. 

"  According  to  the  theory  of  development  (evolution)  in  its 
simplest  form,"  says  Henry  Hartshorne,*  "  the"  universe  as  it 
now  exists  is  a  result  of  can  immense  series  of  changes/ 
related  to  and  dependent  upon  each  other  as  successive  steps,  or 
rather  growths,  constituting  a  progress  ;  analogous  to  the 
unfolding  or  evolving  of  the  parts  of  a  growing  organism." 

*  Johnson's  Cyclopedia,  Article  "  Evolution." 

58 


OF  THE      "Oh 

UNIVERSITY 
C 


\ 


Fig.    I. 


Fia.  I.— Represents  Pouched  Animals  (Marsupialia).    Kangaroo. 
(Popular  Science  Monthly,  Feb.,  1876.) 


61 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  63 

Herbert  Spencer  defined  evolution  as  consisting  in  a  progress 
from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous,  from  general  to 
special,  from  the  simple  to  the  complex  ;  and  this  process  is 
considered  to  be  traceable  in  the  formation  of  worlds  in  space, 
in  the  multiplication  of  the  types  and  species  of  plants  and 
animals  on  the  globe,  in  the  origination  and  diversity  of 
languages,  literature,  arts  and  sciences,  and  in  all  changes  of 
human  institutions  and  society. 

Let  us  now  apply  this  theory  of  evolution  to  the  physical 
world.  No  determined  opposition  by  the  mass  of  people  is 
likely  to  be  manifested  to  the  doctrine  of  evolution  as  applied  to 
the  physical  world,  or  even  to  the  vegetable  or  animal  world  up  to 
man  ;  but  the  minute  man  is  included — then  is  a  voice  raised  up 
against  it,  and  it  was  for  this  reason  that  Darwin  in  his  first 
work  on  the  "  Theory  of  Descent "  did  not  mention  man  as 
being  included  in  the  evolutionary  series.  He  knew  too  well  the 
foolish  human  weakness  that  existed. 

In  a  recent  work  by  Prof.  Challes,  he  states  that  he  regards 
the  material  universe  as  "  a  vast  and  wonderful  mechanism  of 
which  the  least  wonderful  thing  is  its  being  so  constructed  that 
we  can  understand  it." 

The  following  is  a  brief  description  of  the  various  theories  of 
the  world's  formation : 

First  Theory. — By  the  first  theory  the  world  is  supposed  to 
have  existed  from  eternity  under  its  actual  form.  Aristotle 
embraced  this  doctrine,  and  conceived  the  universe  to  be  the 
eternal  effect  of  an  eternal  cause  ;  maintaining  that  not  only  the 
heavens  and  the  earth,  but  all  animate  and  inanimate  beings,  are 
without  beginning.  To  use  Huxley's  illustration :  If  you  can 
imagine  a  spectator  on  the  earth,  however  far  back  in  time,  he 
would  have  seen  a  world  "  essentially  similar,  though  not  per- 
haps in  all  its  details,  to  that  which  now  exists.  The  animals 


64     THEORIES    OF    THE    WORLD'S    FORMATION. 

which  existed  would  be  the  ancestors  of  those  which  now  exist, 
and  like  them  ;  the  plants  in  like  manner  would  be  such  as  we 
have  now,  and  like  them  ;  and  the  supposition  is  that,  at  how- 
ever distant  a  period  of  time  you  place  your  observer,  he  would 
still  find  mountains,  lands,  and  waters,  with  animal  and  vegeta- 
ble products  flourishing  upoo  them  and  sporting  in  them  just  as 
he  finds  now."  This  theory  being  perfectly  inconsistent  with 
facts,  had  to  be  abandoned. 

Second  Theory. — The  second  theory  considers  the  universe 
eternal,  but  not  its  form.  This  was  the  system  of  Epicurus  and 
most  of  the  ancient  philosophers  and  poets,  who  imagined  the 
world  either  to  be  produced  by  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms 
existing  from  all  eternity,  or  to  have  sprung  out  of  the  chaotic 
form  which  preceded  its  present  state. 

Third  Theory. — By  this  theory  the  matter  and  form  of  the 
earth  is  ascribed  to  the  direct  agency  of  a  spiritual  cause.  It  is 
needless  to  say  that  this  last  theory  has  for  its  basis  the  popular 
account,  generally  credited  to  Moses  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis.  I  say  popular,  for  it  certainly  is  not  a  scientific 
account,  nor  was  it  the  intention  of  the  writer  to  make  it  so. 
The  supposed  object  was  to  show  the  relation  between  the 
Creator  and  his  works.  If  it  had  been  an  ultimate  scientific 
account,  the  ablest  minds  of  to-day  would  be  unable  to  compre- 
hend it,  as  science  is  progressive  and  constantly  changing  ;  in 
fifty  thousand  years  to  come,  it  would  still  appear  utterly  absurd. 
It  cannot  be  said  for  this  fact  that  the  account  is  any  the  less 
true  because  it  is  not  presented  in  scientific  phraseology  ;  for 
instance,  when  we  remark  in  popular  language  "  the  sun  rises," 
who  shall  say  that  though  the  expression  is  not  astronomically 
true,  we  do  not,  for  all  practical  purposes,  utter  as  important  a 
truth,  as  when  we  say,  "  The  earth  by  its  revolution  brings  us 
to  that  point  where  the  sun  becomes  visible  ?  "  The  language, 


Fig.    I. 


FIG.  I.-Skeleton  of  Kangaroo.    (Popular  Science  Monthly.) 


Fig.    I. 


FIG.    I.— Represents  Semi-Apes  (Prosimise).    The  Slow  Loris,  after  Ticket  and 
Alp.  Miln-Edwards.    (Natural  History,  by  Duncan.) 


67 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  69 

also,  in  which  the  writer  wrote  was  very  imperfect ;  it  had  no 
equivalent  to  our  word  "  air  "  or  "  atmosphere/'  properly  speak- 
ing, for  they  knew  not  the  words.  "  Their  nearest  approaches," 
according  to  J.  Pye  Smith,  "  were  with  words  that  denoted 
watery  vapor  condensed,  and  thus  rendered  visible,  whether  float- 
ing around  them  or  seen  in  the  breathing  of  animals ;  and  words 
for  smoke  from  substances  burning  ;  and  for  air  in  motion,  wind, 
a  zephyr  whisper  or  a  storm."  It  must  also  be  remembered,  "  that 
the  Hebrews  had  no  term  for  the  abstract  ideas  which  we  express 
by  '  fluid '  or  <  matter/  If  the  writer  had  designed  to  express 
the  idea, '  In  the  beginning  God  created  matter,'  he  could  not 
have  found  words  to  serve  his  purpose"  (Phin). 

It  is  unnecessary  to  state  how  the  Bible,  which  contains  the 
so-called  Mosaic  account,  is  regarded  by  the  different  church  de- 
nominations, as  undoubtedly  that  is  familiar  to  every  one.  But 
with  respect  to  the  view  entertained  by  the  scientist  and  critical 
school  of  Biblical  scholars,  represented  chiefly  by  modern  Ger- 
mans, I  may  state  briefly  :  "  They  regard  the  Bible  as  the  human 
record  of  a  divine  revelation  ;  not  absolutely  infallible,  since  there 
is  no  book  written  in  any  human  language  but  must  partake  in 
a  measure  of  the  imperfections  of  that  language.  Many  of  this 
school,  while  admitting  the  Bible  to  contain  the  record  of  a  true 
supernatural  revelation,  do  not  consider  it  to  be  without  positive 
error  of  historical  fact,  not  without  false  coloring  from  popular 
legend  and  tradition,  but  nevertheless  a  record  as  good  as  human 
hands  could  make  a  truly  divine  revelation."  * 

There  is,  though,  a  class  of  thinkers  that  altogether  reject 
the  Bible  ;  that  is  to  say,  refuse  to  believe  it  to  be  a  divine  reve- 
lation. Hume,  whom  Huxley  calls  "  the  most  acute  thinker  of 
the  eighteenth  century,"  thus  ends  one  of  his  essays  :  "  If  we 
take  in  hand  any  volume  of  divinity  or  school  metaphysics,  for 

*  Sumner,  in  Johnson's  Cyc. 


70  THE    BIBLE. 

\ 

instance,  let  us  ask,  Does  it  contain  any  abstract  reasoning  con- 
cerning quantity  or  number  ?  No.  Does  it  contain  any  experi- 
mental reasoning  concerning  matter  of  fact  and  existence  ?  No. 
Commit  it,  then,  to  the  flames,  for  it  can  contain  nothing  but 
sophistry  and  illusion."  To  this  Huxley  says  :  "  Permit  me  to 
enforce  this  wise  advice,  Why  trouble  ourselves  about  matters  of 
which,  however  important  they  may  be,  we  do  know  nothing, 
and  can  know  nothing  ?  We  live  in  a  world  which  is  full  of 
misery  and  ignorance,  and  the  plain  duty  of  each  and  all  of  us 
is  to  try  to  make  the  little  corner  he  can  influence  somewhat  less 
miserable  and  somewhat  less  ignorant  than  it  was  before  he  en- 
tered it.  To  do  this  effectually,  it  is  necessary  to  be  fully  pos- 
sessed of  only  two  beliefs  :  the  first,  that  the  order  of  nature  is 
ascertainable  by  our  faculties  to  an  extent  which  is  practically 
unlimited  ;  the  second,  that  our  volitions  count  for  something  as 
a  condition  of  the  course  of  events.  Each  of  these  beliefs  can 
be  verified  experimentally,  as  often  as  we  like  to  try.  Each, 
therefore,  stands  upon  the  strongest  foundation  upon  which  any 
belief  can  rest,  and  forms  one  of  our  highest  truths." 

The  first  words  in  the  Mosaic  account  are  :*  "  In  the  begin- 
ning God  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth."f  It  is  seen,  then, 
that  the  so-called  revelation  points  to  a  beginning.  The  begin- 
ning referred  to  is  an  absolute  beginning,  for  we  find  :  "  In  the 
beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the 
Word  was  God." %  *  *  *  "All  things  were  made  by  Him  ; 
and  without  Him  was  not  anything  made  that  was  made."§ 
Science  points  also  to  a  beginning. 

Geology  points  to  a  time  when  man  did  not  inhabit  the  earth  ; 
when  for  him  there  was  a  beginning.  So,  too,  for  lower  organ- 
isms ;  so,  too,  for  the  rocky  minerals  ;  so,  too,  for  the  round 

*  Christian  Union,  Vol.  XIII,  No.  17,  p.  322.  f  Gen.  i.  1. 

1  St.  John  i.  1.  §  St.  John  i.  3. 


Fig.    I. 


FIG.  I.— Represents  Tailed  Apes  (Menocerca).     Proboscis  Monkey 
(Presbytes  larvatus).    (Mammalia.)— Louis  Mguier. 


The  natives  of  Borneo  pretend  that  these  monkeys,  or,  as  sometimes  called,  Kahan,  are 
men  who  have  retired  to  the  woods  to  avoid  paying  taxes ;  and  they  entertain  the  greatest 
respect  for  a  being  who  has  found  such  ready  means  of  evading  the  responsibilities  of 
society.— Figuier. 


71 


73 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  75 

world  itself.  But  the  beginning  that  science  points  to  is  not  an 
absolute  beginning.  Science  has  to  start  from  some  point,  and 
that  point  must  have  a  scientific  foundation — the  foundation  of 
science  is  matter,  which  is  inseparable  from  form  and  force. 
Natural  science  teaches  that  matter  is  eternal  and  imperishable  ; 
for  experience  has  never  shown  us  that  even  the  smallest  particle 
of  matter  has  come  into  existence  or  passed  away.  "  A  natural- 
ist/' says  Haeckel,  "  can  no  more  imagine  the  coming  into  exist- 
ence of  matter  than  he  can  imagine  its  disappearance,  and  he 
therefore  looks  upon  the  existing  quantity  of  matter  in  the  uni- 
verse as  a  given  fact."  "  The  creation  of  matter,  if,  indeed,"  says 
Haeckel,*  "it  ever  took  place,  is  completely  beyond  human  com- 
prehension, and  can  therefore  never  become  a  subject  of  scientific 
inquiry.  We  can  as  little  imagine  a  first  beginning  of  the  eternal 
phenomena  of  the  motion  of  the  universe  as  of  its  final  end."  f 
It  is  evident,  then,  that  the  absolute  beginning  of  the  universe 
and  its  absolute  end  are  not  questions  of  science,  and  can  be 
known  only  as  revealed  by  faith.  Paul  says:  "By  faith  we 
understand  that  the  world  was  framed  by  the  word  of  God,  so 
that  things  which  are  seen  were  not  made  of  things  \Wiich 
appeared."  $ 

If,  therefore,  science  makes  the  "history  of  creation"  its 
highest  and  most  difficult  and  most  comprehensible  problem,  it 
must  deal  with  "  the  coming  into  being  of  the  form  of  natural 
bodies."  Let  us  look  for  a  minute  at  Kant's  Cosmogony,  or,  as 
Haeckel  says,§  Kant's  Cosmological  Gas  Theory  :  "  This  won- 
derful theory,"  says  Haeckel,  "  harmonizes  with  all  the  general 
series  of  phenomena  at  present  known  to  us,  and  stands  in  no 
irreconcilable  contradiction  to  any  one  of  them.  Moreover,  it  is 
purely  mechanical  and  monistic,  makes  use  exclusively  of  the  in- 

*  Hist,  of  Creation,  p.  8.  f  Ibid.,  p.  324. 

t  Heb.  xi.  3.    Revised  English  Ed.        §  Loc.  dt.,  Vol.  I,  p.  323. 


76  KANT'S    COSMOGONY. 

herent  forces  of  eternal  matter,  and  entirely  excludes  every  super- 
natural process,  every  prearranged  and  conscious  action  of  a  per- 
sonal creator."  Compare  this  last  statement  with  the  following  : 
"I  will,  however,"  says  Haeckel,*  "not  deny  that  Kant's  grand 
cosmogony  has  some  weak  points."  *  *  *  "  A  great  unsolved 
difficulty  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  cosmological  gas  theory  furnishes 
no  starting-point  at  all  in  explanation  of  the  first  impulse  which 
caused  the  rotary  motion  in  the  gas-filled  universe." 

Whewellf  has  pointed  out,  that  the  nebular  hypothesis  is 
null  without  a  creative  act  to  produce  the  inequality  of  distribu- 
tion of  cosmic  matter  in  space. 

It  is  seen,  then,  that  according  to  Kant's  theory  we  are  to 
suppose  that  millions  of  years  ago  there  appeared  a  nebulous 
mass  possessing  a  rotary  motion,  and  unequally  distributed 
through  space.  This  is  what  science  calls  a  beginning,  and  may 
assert  that  every  physical  event  of  a  hundred  million  of  ages 
existed  potentially  in  that  nebulous  mass.  But  this  is  really  no 
explanation  of  the  ultimate  and  real  cause  of  anything.  Keason 
demands  the  cause  of  this  beginning,  the  source  that  gave  to  the 
nebulous  mass  its  rotary  motion  ;  the  power  that  distributed  the 
matter  in  space  ;  the  antecedents  of  the  cosmical  vapor.  In  ab- 
sence of  antecedents,  what  was  the  cause  of  this  fire-mist — of 
these  forces  active  in  it  ?  Reason  will  never  remain  satisfied 
until  these  questions  are  answered.  But  physical  science  can 
trace  the  thread  no  further  back,  and  must  be  dumb  to  all  ulte- 
rior inquiries.  It  is  true,  then,  as  physicists  assert,  "  that  their 
science  does  not  mount  actually  to  God." 

To  God  then,  in  strict  accordance  with  our  reason,  is  to  be 
attributed  not  only  the  origination  of  matter,  but  all  its  future 
developments.  When  I  speak  of  matter,  it  must  be  understood 

*  Loc.cto.iVol.  I,  p.  324. 
f  Indications  of  the  Creator. 


79 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  81 

that  I  mean  force  ;  for  "  if  matter  were  not  force,  and  imme- 
diately known  as  force,  it  could  not  be  known  at  all,  could  not 
be  rationally  inferred.  The  operation  of  force  could  furnish  no 
evidence  of  the  existence  of  forceless  matter.  If  force  is  not 
matter,  then  force  can  exist  and  operate  without  matter ;  its 
existence  and  operation  are  no  evidence  of  the  existence  of 
matter.  And  as  matter  is  forceless,  it  can  itself  give  no  evidence 
of  its  own  existence,  for  that  would  be  an  exercise  of  force.  If 
force  cannot  exist  and  operate  without  matter,  then  force 
depends  for  its  existence  and  operation  on  the  forceless,  which 
destroys  itself ;  or  force  depends  for  its  existence  on  matter  as 
some  property  or  force,  and  so  matter  and  force  are  identified, 
and  force  depends  on  itself  only,  as  it  must."*  The  idea,  then, 
that  force  is  an  attribute  of  matter  and  inherent  in  it,  is  absurd, 
for  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  evidence  that  force  is  or  can  be  an 
attribute  of  matter.  We  have  no  knowledge  of  the  origin  of  any 
force  save  of  that  which  emanates  from  human  volition.  All 
our  knowledge  of  force  presents  it  as  an  effort  of  intelligent  will. 
"We  are  driven,"  says  Winchell,  "by  the  necessary  laws  of 
thought,  to  pronounce  those  energies  styled  gravitation,  heat, 
chemical  affinity  and  their  correlates,  nothing  less  than  intelli- 
gent will.  But  as  it  is  not  human  will  which  energizes  in 
whirlwind  and  the  comet,  it  must  be  divine  will."  "  In  all 
cases,  the  creative  power  of  God  is  an  act  of  power,  and  the 
power  does  not  perish  with  its  inception,  but  continues  to 
operate  until  the  act  is  reversed  and  undone  ;  so  that  every- 
thing that  God  has  created  constitutes  a  positive  and  intrinsic 
force,  though  borrowed  from  Him.  Every  incident  runs  back  to 
God  as  its  originator  and  real  cause.  The  true  philosophical 
doctrine  makes  God  distinct  from  all  his  works,  and  yet  acting 
in  them.  This  doctrine  has  been  held  by  the  greatest  thinkers 

*  Evolution  and  Progress,  p.  26,  Rev.  Wm.  I.  Gill. 


82  NATURE    A    PERPETUAL    CREATION. 

the  world  has  ever  produced,  such  as  Descartes,  Lerbrisky, 
Berkeley,  Herschel,  Faraday,  and  a  multitude  of  others.  "  It 
seems  to  he  required,"  says  Dr.  McCosh,  "  by  that  deep  law  of 
causation  which  not  only  prompts  us  to  seek  for  a  law  in  every- 
thing but  an  adequate  cause,  to  be  found  only  in  an  intelligent 
mind."  "  Our  greatest  American  thinker,  Jonathan  Edwards," 
says  Dr.  McCosh,  (whom  I  can  claim  as  my  predecessor,) 
"maintains  that,  as  an  image  in  a  mirror  is  kept  up  by  a 
constant  succession  of  rays  of  light,  so  nature  is  sustained 
by  a  constant  forth-putting  of  the  divine  power.  In  this  view 
Nature  is  a  perpetual  creation.  God  is  to  be  seen  not  only  in 
creation  at  first,  but  in  the  continuance  of  all  things.  "  They 
continue  to  this  day  according  to  Thine  ordinances." 

Keturning  now  to  the  history  of  the  creation  given  by  Moses, 
Haeckel  says,  "  Although  Moses  looks  upon  the  results  of  the 
great  laws  of  organic  development  as  the  direct  actions  of  a  con- 
structing Creator,  yet  in  his  theory  there  lies  hidden  the  ruling 
idea  of  a  progressive  development  and  a  differentiation  of  the 
originally  simple  matter.  We  can  therefore  bestow  our  just  and 
sincere  admiration  on  the  Jewish  lawgiver's  grand  insight  into 
nature,  without  discovering  in  it  a  so-called  <  divine  revela- 
tion/ That  it  cannot  be  such  is  clear  from  the  fact  that  two 
great  fundamental  errors  are  asserted  in  it,  namely,  first  the 
geocentric  error,  that  the  earth  is  the  fixed  central  point  of  the 
whole  universe,  round  which  the  sun,  moon  and  stars  move ; 
and  secondly,  the  anthropocentric  error  that  man  is  the  pre- 
meditated aim  of  the  creation  of  the  world,  for  whose  service 
alone  all  the  rest  of  nature  is  said  to  have  been  created.  The 
former  of  these  errors  was  demolished  by  Copernicus'  System  of 
the  Universe  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  latter 
by  Lamarck's  Doctrine  of  Descent  in  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century." 


Fig.    I. 


Fig.    II. 


FIG.  II.— Skull  of  Orang-utan  (Simla 
satyrus).—  Orion. 


FIG.  I.— Australian  Savage.— Orton. 


FIG.  III.— Skull  of  Chimpanzee  (Troglodytes  niger).       FIG.  IV.— Skull  of  Gorilla.— Duncan. 


Ficr.    V. 


Fig.     VT. 


FIG.  V. — Skull  of  European. 


FIG.  VI.— Skull  of  Negro.— Orton. 


83 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  85 

Prof.  Huxley,  in  his  lecture  on  "  Evidences  of  Evolution," 
spoke  of  the  Mosaic  account  as  Milton's  hypothesis.  First, 
"  because,"  says  Huxley,  "  we  are  now  assured  upon  the  authority 
of  the  highest  critics,  and  even  of  dignitaries  of  the  church,  that 
there  is  no  evidence  whatever  that  Moses  ever  wrote  this  chapter, 
or  knew  anything  about  it ;"  and  second,  as  this  hypothesis  is 
presented  in  Milton's  work  on  "Paradise  Lost,"  it  is  appro- 
priate to  call  it  the  Miltonic  Hypothesis.  "  In  the  Miltonic 
account,"  says  Huxley,  "  the  order  in  which  animals  should 
have  made  their  appearance  in  the  stratified  rocks  would  be 
this  :  Fishes,  including  the  great  whale,  and  birds  ;  after  that 
all  the  varieties  of  terrestrial  animals.  Nothing  could  be  further 
from  the  facts  as  we  find  them.  As  a  matter  of  fact  we  know  of 
not  the  slightest  evidence  of  the  existence  of  birds  before  the 
Jurassic  and  perhaps  the  triassic  formations.  If  there  were 
any  parallel  between  the  Miltonic  account  and  the  circum- 
stantial evidence,  we  ought  to  have  abundant  evidence  in  the 
devonian,  the  silurian,  and  carboniferous  rocks.  I  need  not  tell 
you  that  this  is  not  the  case,  and  that  not  a  trace  of  birds  makes 
its  appearance  until  the  far  later  period  which  I  have  mentioned. 
And  again,  if  it  be  true  that  all  varieties  of  fishes,  and  the  great 
whales  and  the  like,  made  their  appearance  on  the  fifth  day,  then 
we  ought  to  find  the  remains  of  these  things  in  the  older  rocks — 
in  those  which  preceded  the  carboniferous  epoch.  Fishes,  it  is 
true,  we  find,  and  numerous  ones ;  but  the  great  whales  are 
absent,  and  the  fishes  are  not  such  as  now  live.  Not  one  solitary 
species  of  fish  now  in  existence  is  to  be  found  there,  and  hence 
you  are  introduced  again  to  the  difficulty,  to  the  dilemma,  that 
either  the  creatures  that  were  created  then,  which  came  into 
existence  the  sixth  day,  were  not  those  which  are  found  at 
present,  or  are  not  the  direct  and  immediate  predecessors  of 
those  which  now  exist ;  but  in  that  case  you  must  either  have 


86  KANT'S    COSMOGONY. 

had  a  fresh  species  of  which  nothing  1ms  been  said,  or  else  the 
whole  story  must  be  given  up  as  absolutely  devoid  of  any 
circumstantial  evidence." 

It  is  for  these  and  many  other  reasons  that  I  feel  bound  to 
omit  the  Mosaic  account,  no  matter  how  near  some  portions  of 
it  coincide  with  the  facts  the  earth  has  opened  out  to  the 
scientist.  • 

KANT'S    COSMOGONY. 

It  is  maintained  by  Kant's  Cosmogony  that  every  substance, 
be  it  solid  or  liquid,  constituting  the  entire  universe,  was,  incon- 
ceivable ages  ago,  in  their  homogeneous  gaseous  or  nebulous  con- 
dition. Owing  to  an  impulse  being  given  to  the  nebulous  mass, 
it  acquired  a  rotary  movement,  which  divided  the  nebulous  mass 
up  into  a  number  of  masses  which,  owing  to  the  rotation,  ac- 
quired greater  density  than  the  remaining  gaseous  mass,  and  then 
acted  on  the  latter  as  central  points  of  attraction.  Our  solar 
system  was  thus  a  gigantic  gaseous  or  nebulous  ball,  all  the  par- 
ticles of  which  revolved  around  a  common  central  point — the 
solar  nucleus.  This  nebulous  ball  assumed  by  its  continual  rota- 
tion a  more  or  less  flattened  spheroidal  form.  By  the  continual 
revolution  of  this  mass,  under  the  influence  of  the  centripetal 
and  centrifugal  forces,  a  circular  nebular  ring  separated  (like  the 
present  ring  around  Saturn)  from  the  rotating  ball.  In  time  the 
nebulous  ring  condensed  to  a  planet,  which  began  to  revolve 
around  its  own  axis.  When  the  centrifugal  force  became  more 
powerful  than  the  centripetal  force  in  the  planet,  rings  were 
formed,  which,  in  turn,  formed  planets  which  revolved  around 
their  axes,  as  also  around  their  planets,  as  the  latter  moved 
around  the  sun,  and  thus  arose  the  moons,  only  one  of  which 
moves  around  our  earth,  while  four  move  around  Jupiter  and  six 
around  Uranus.  This  order  of  things  was  repeated  over  and 


FACIAL  ANGLE,  by  Prof.  Nelson  Sizer.  1,  Snake  ;  2,  Dog;  3,  Elephant ;  4,  Ape  :  5,  Human  Idiot  -6,  The  Bush- 
man ;  7,  The  Uncultivated  ;  8,  The  Improved  ;  9,  The  Civilized  ;  10,  The  Enlightened  ;  11,  The  Caucasian 
(highest  type). 


Caucasian 
(after  Van  Evrie). 


Head  of  Nose-Ape 
(after  Brehm). 


Julia  Pastrana  Living  Idiot 

(Photographed  by  Hintyz).      (on  Blackwell's  Island). 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  89 

over  again  until  thereby  arose  the  different  solar  systems — the 
planets  rotating  around  their  central  suns,  and  the  satellites  or 
moons  moving  around  their  planets.  By  a  continuous  increasing 
of  refrigeration  and  condensation,  a  fiery  fluid  or  molten  state 
occurred  in  these  rotating  bodies.  They  then  emitted  an  enor- 
mous amount  of  heat  by  rapid  condensation,  and  the  rotating 
bodies — suns,  planets,  and  moons— soon  became  glowing  balls  of 
fire,  emitting  light  and  heat.  The  ^^  part  of  a  pound  of 
magnesium  wire,  burning  in  the  open  air,  will  give  a  light  which 
will  last  during  one  second,  and  can  be  seen  at  a  distance  of  thirty 
miles  ;  imagine,  then,  what  the  light  would  be  from  these  huge 
balls  of  fire  floating  through  space.  The  earth  forms  a  small 
part — nay,  even  the  sun  whose  mass  is  equal  to  354,936  earths 
like  ours,  is  but  an  infinitesimal  portion  of  the  whole.  By  the 
continual  emitting  of  heat,  however,  these  fiery  balls  had  a  crust 
form  on  the  outside,  which  enclosed  a  fiery  fluid  nucleus.  The ' 
crust  for  a  time  must  have  been  a  smooth  sheet,  but  afterward 
very  uneven,  having  protuberances  and  cavities  form  over  its  sur- 
face, owing  to  the  molten  mass  within  becoming  condensed  and 
contracted  ;  the  crust  not  following  this  change  sufficiently  close, 
must  have  fallen  in,  and  thus  produced  the  cavities. 

All  the  time,  by  the  condensation,  the  diameter  of  the  earth 
was  being  diminished.  The  irregular  cooling  of  the  crust  caused 
irregular  contractions  on  the  surface,  and  as  the  diameter  of  the 
molten  mass  within  was  continually  diminishing,  many  elevations 
and  depressions  were  caused,  which  were  the  foundations  of  moun- 
tains and  valleys. 

After  the  temperature  of  the  earth  had  been  reduced  by  the 
thickening  of  the  crust — when  it  became  sufficiently  cool — the 
water  which  existed  in  steam  was  condensed  and  precipitated, 
falling  in  torrents,  washing  down  the  elevations,  filling  the  de- 
pressions with  the  mud  carried  along,  and  depositing  it  in  layers. 


90  LAWS    OF    EVOLUTION. 

It  was  not  until  the  earth  became  covered  with  water  that  life 
was  possible  in  any  form,  as  both  animals  and  plants  consist  to 
a  very  great  extent  of  water.  At  this  stage  in  the  history  of  the 
earth,  then,  the  little  mass  of  protoplasm,  which  we  have  spoken 
so  much  about,  came  into  existence  in  all  probability,  as  has 
been  stated,  by  spontaneous  generation^ 

LAWS    OF    EVOLUTION. 

Let  us  now  examine  some  of  the  laws  of  evolution,  as  also 
some  of  the  connecting  links  which  blend  one  stage  of  man's 
development  with  another,  which  at  first  thought  would  seem 
unexplainable. 

Haeckel*  summarizes  the  inductive  evidences  of  Darwinism 
as  follows  :  1.  Paleontological  series  (phylogeny)  ;  2.  Embryo- 
logical  development  of  the  individual  (ontogeny)  ;  3.  The  cor- 
respondence in  the  terms  of  these  two  series  ;  4.  Comparative 
anatomy  (typical  forms  and  structures) ;  5.  Correspondence 
between  comparative  anatomy  and  ontogeny  ;  6.  Kudimentary 
organs  (dipeliology)  ;  7.  The  natural  system  of  organisms  (clas- 
sification) ;  8.  Geographical  distribution  (chorology)  ;  9.  Adap- 
tation to  the  environment  (oecology)  ;  10.  The  unity  of  biological 
phenomena. 

It  will  of  course  be  impossible  to  consider  even  hastily  all  of 
the  inductive  evidence  belonging  to  the  several  groups  men- 
tioned above,  for  the  scope  of  this  work  would  not  permit  of  it. 
Only  such  facts  as  present  themselves  most  forcibly  to  the  mind 
will  be  considered. 

Darwinism,  as  has  already  been  stated,  is  not  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  ;  it  is,  however,  a  successful  attempt  to  explain  the  law 
or  manner  of  evolution.  The  law  of  natural  selection,  pointed 

*  Natiirl.  Scho'pfungsgesch.,  pp.  643-5. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  91 

out  by  Darwin,  is  called  by  Herbert  Spencer,  The  struggle  for 
existence.  Darwin  discovered  that  natural  selection  produces 
fitness  between  organisms  and  their  circumstances,  which  explains 
the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  man  can,  by  pursuing  a  certain 
method  of  breeding  or  cultivation,  improve  and  in  various  ways 
modify  the  character  of  the  different  domestic  animals  and 
plants.  By  always  selecting  the  best  specimen  from  which  to 
propagate  the  race,  those  features  which  it  is  desired  to  perpetu- 
ate become  more  and  more  developed  ;  so  that  what  are  admitted 
to  be  real  varieties  sometimes  acquire,  in  the  course  of  successive 
generations,  a  character  as  strikingly  distinct,  to  all  appearances, 
from  those  of  the  varieties,  as  one  species  is  from  another  species 
of  the  same  genus.  It  is  evident  that  both  natural  and  artificial 
selection  depends  on  adaptation  and  inheritance.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  two  forms  of  selection  is  that,  in  the  first  case, 
the  will  of  man  makes  the  selection  according  to  a  plan,  whereas 
in  natural  selection  the  struggle  for  life  and  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  acts  without  a  plan  other  than  that  the  most  adaptable 
organism  shall  survive  which  is  most  fit  to  contend  with  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  it  is  placed.  Natural  selection  acts, 
therefore,  much  more  slowly  than  artificial  selection,  although  it 
brings  about  the  same  end.  Adaptation  in  the  struggle  for  life 
is  an  absolute  necessity. 

In  every  act  of  breeding,  a  certain  amount  of  protoplasm  is 
transferred  from  the  parents  to  the  child,  and  along  with  it  there 
is  transferred  the  individual  peculiar  molecular  motion.  Adapta- 
tion or  transmutation  depends  upon  the  material  influence  which 
organism  experiences  from  its  surroundings,  or  its  conditions  of 
existence  ;  while  the  transmission  from  inheritance  is  due  to  the 
partial  identity  of  producing  and  produced  organisms. 

Organized  beings,  as  a  rule,  are  gifted  with  enormous  powers 


92  SURVIVAL    OF    THE    FITTEST. 

of  increase.  Wild  plants  yield  their  crop  of  seed  annually,  and 
most  wild  animals  bring  forth  their  young  yearly  or  oftener. 
Should  this  process  go  on  unchecked,  in  a  short  time  the  earth 
would  be  completely  overrun  with  living  beings.  It  has  been 
calculated  that  if  a  plant  produces  fifty  seeds  (which  is  far  below 
the  reproductive  capacity  of  many  plants)  the  first  year,  each  of 
these  seeds  growing  up  into  a  plant  which  produces  fifty  seeds, 
or  altogether  two  thousand  five  hundred  seeds  the  next  year, 
and  so  on,  it  would  under  favorable  conditions  of  growth  give 
rise  in  nine  years  to  more  plants  by  five  hundred  trillions 
than  there  are  square  feet  of  dry  land  upon  the  surface  of  the 
earth. 

Slow-breeding  man  has  been  known  to  double  his  number  in 
twenty-five  years,  and  according  to  Euler,  this  might  occur  in 
little  over  twelve  years.  But  assuming  the  former  rate  of 
increase,  and  taking  the  population  of  the  United  States  at 
only  thirty  millions,  in  six  hundred  and  eighty-five  years  their 
living  progeny  would  have  each  but  a  square  foot  to  stand  upon, 
were  they  spread  over  the  entire  globe,  land  and  water  included. 
But  millions  of  species  are .  doing  the  same  thing,  so  that  the 
inevitable  result  of  this  strife  cannot  be  a  matter  of  chance. 
Evidently  those  individuals  or  varieties  having  some  advantage 
over  their  competitors  will  stand  the  best  chance  to  live,  while 
those  destitute  of  these  advantages  will  be  liable  to  destruction. 
Nature  may  be  said  (metaphorically)  to  choose  (like  the  will  of 
man  in  artificial  selection)  which  shall  be  preserved  and  which 
destroyed. 

That  portion  of  the  theory  of  development  which  maintains 
the  common  descent  of  all  species  of  animals  and  plants  from 
the  simplest  common  origin,  I  have  already  stated  with  full 
justice  should  be  called  Lamarckism.  Progress  is  recognized 
by  all  scientists  to  be  a  law  of  nature.  Some  of  the  more 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  93 

important  facts   which   sustain  the   theory  of  development,  I 
propose  now  to  present  as  briefly  as  possible. 

EUDIMENTARY    OEGANS. 

One  of  the  strongest  arguments  in  favor  of  the  hypothesis 
of  a  genetic  connection  among  all  animals  (including  man), 
at  least  among  all  those  belonging  to  the  same  great  types,  is 
the  presence  of  rudimentary  parts.  By  rudiments  in  anatomy 
are  meant  organs  or  structures  imperfectly  developed,  so  as  to  be 
almost  or  entirely  without  functional  use.  "Each  of  them 
represents  in  germ,  as  it  were,  in  one  animal  (or  plant),  that 
which  is  perfect  and  useful  in  another  type." 

For  a  few  examples  :  The  little  fold  of  caruncle  at  the  inner 
margin  of  the  eye  in  man,  represents  the  nictitating  membrane 
of  birds.  Eyes  which  do  not  see  form  a  striking  example. 
These  are  found  in  very  many  animals  which  live  in  the  dark, 
as  in  caves  or  underground.  Their  eyes  are  often  perfectly 
developed  but  are  covered  by  a  membrane,  so  that  no  ray 
of  light  can  enter  and  they  can  never  see.  Such  eyes,  without 
the  function  of  sight,  are  found  in  several  species  of  moles  and 
mice  which  live  underground,  in  serpents  and  lizards,  in  amphi- 
bious animals  (proteus,  ceecilia)  and  in  fishes  ;  also  in  numerous 
invertebrate  animals  which  pass  their  lives  in  the  dark,  as  do 
many  beetles,  crabs,  snails,  worms,  etc. 

Other  rudimentary  organs  are  the  wings  of  animals  which 
cannot  fly.  For  example,  the  wings  of  the  running  birds,  like 
the  ostrich,  emeu,  cassowary,  etc.,  the  legs  of  which  become 
exceedingly  developed.  The  muscles  which  move  the  ears  of 
animals  are  still  present  in  man,  but  of  course  are  of  no  use  ;  by 
continual  practice  persons  have  been  able  to  move  their  ears  by 
these  muscles.  The  rudiment  of  the  tail  of  animals  which  man 


94  RUDIMENTARY    ORGANS. 

possesses  in  his  3-5  tail  vertebrae,  is  another  rudimentary  part- 
in  the  human  embryo  it  stands  out  prominently  during  the  first 
two  months  of  its  development  ;  it  afterwards  becomes  hidden. 
"  The  rudimentary  little  tail  of  man  is  irrefutable  proof  that  he 
is  descended  from  tailed  ancestors."  In  woman  the  tail  is  gen- 
erally, by  one  vertebra,  longer  than  in  man.  There  still  exists 
rudimentary  muscles  in  the  human  tail  which  formerly  moved  it. 
Another  case  of  human  rudimentary  organs,  only  belonging 
to  the  male,  and  which  obtains  in  like  manner  in  all  mammals, 
is  furnished  by  the  mammary  glands  on  the  breast,  which,  as  a 
rule,  are  active  only  in  the  female  sex.  However,  cases  of 
different  mammals  are  known,  especially  of  men,  sheep  and 
goats,  in  which  the  mammary  glands  were  fully  developed 
in  the  male  sex,  and  yield  milk  as  food  for  their  offspring. 
The  vermiform  appendix  of  the  large  intestine  in  man,  is 
another  illustration  of  a  part  which  has  no  use,  but  in  one 
marsupial  is  three  times  the  length  of  its  body.  The  rudi- 
mentary covering  of  hair  over  certain  portions  of  the  body, 
is  not  without  interest.  Over  the  body  we  find  but  a  scanty 
covering,  which  is  thick  only  on  the  head,  in  the  armpits,  and 
on  some  other  parts  of  the  body.  The  short  hairs  on  the  greater 
part  of  the  body  are  entirely  useless,  and  are  the  last  scanty 
remains  of  the  hairy  covering  of  our  ape  ancestors.  Both  on 
the  upper  and  lower  arm  the  hair§  are  directed  toward  the  elbow, 
where  they  meet  at  an  obtuse  angle — this  striking  arrangement 
is  only  found  in  man  and  the  anthropoid  apes,  the  gorilla, 
chimpanzee,  orang,  and  several  species  of  gibbons.  The  fine 
short  hairs  on  the  body  become  developed  into  "  thickset,  long, 
and  rather  coarse  dark  hairs,"  when  abnormally  nourished  near 
old-standing  inflamed  surfaces.*  The  fine  wool-like  hair  or  so- 
called  lanugo  with  which  the  human  foetus,  during  the  fifth  and 

*  Paget,  Lectures  on  Surgical  Pathology,  1853,  Vol.  I,  p.  71. 


Fig.    I. 


PIG  I.— The  Hairy-Faced  Burmese  Family.    (From  Scientific  American,  Feb.  20,  1875.) 

96 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  97 

sixth  months,  is  thickly  covered,  offers  another  proof  that  man 
is  descended  from  an  animal  which  was  born  hairy,  and  remained 
so  during  life.  This  covering  is  first  developed  during  the  fifth 
month,  on  the  eyebrows  and  face,  and  especially  around  the 
mouth,  where  it  is  much  longer  than  that  on  the  head.  Three 
or  four  cases  have  been  recorded  of  persons  born  with  their  whole 
bodies  and  faces  thickly  covered  with  fine  long  hairs.  Prof.  Alex. 
Brandt  compared  the  hair  from  the  face  of  a  man  thus  charac- 
terized, aged  thirty-five,  with  the  lanugo  of  a  foetus,  and  finds  it 
quite  similar  in  texture.  Eschricht  *  has  devoted  great  atten- 
tion to  this  rudimentary  covering,  and  has  thrown  much  light 
on  the  subject.  He  showed  that  the  female  as  well  as  the  male 
foetus  possessed  this  hairy  covering,  showing  that  both  are 
descended  from  progenitors,  both  sexes  of  whom  were  hairy. 
Eschricht  also  showed,  as  stated  above,  that  the  hair  on  the  face 
of  the  fifth  month  foetus  is  longer  on  the  face  than  on  the  head, 
which  indicates  that  our  semi-human  progenitors  were  not  fur- 
nished with  long  tresses,  which  must  therefore  have  been  a  late 
acquisition.  The  question  naturally  arises,  is  there  any  expla- 
nation for  the  loss  of  hair  covering  ? 

Darwin  is  of  the  opinion  that  the  absence  of  hair  on  the  body 
is,  to  a  certain  extent,  a  secondary  sexual  character  ;  for,  in  all. 
parts  of  the  world,  women  are  less  hairy  than  men.  He  says  : 
"Therefore  we  may  reasonably  suspect  that  this  character  has 
been  gained  through  sexual  selection."  As  the  body  in  woman 
is  less  hairy  than  in  man,  and  as  this  character  is  common  to  all 
races,  we  may  conclude  that  it  was  our  female  semi-human  an- 
cestors who  were  first  divested  of  hair. 

Professor  Grant  Allenf  has  given  much  study  to  the  subject 
of  the  loss  of  hair  in  the  human  being ;  and  his  investigations 

*  Ueber  die  Riclitung  der  Haare  am  menschliclien  Korper. 
f  Pop.  Sci.  Monthly,  June,  1879,  p.  250. 


98  THE    RUDIMENTARY    HAIR    ON    MAN. 

are  worthy  of  careful  consideration.  He  shows  conclusively  that 
those  parts  of  an  animal  which  are  in  constant  contact  with  other 
objects  are  specially  liable  to  lose  their  hair.  This  is  noticeable 
on  the  under  surface  of  the  body  of  all  animals  which  habitually 
lie  on  the  stomach.  The  soles  of  the  feet  of  all  mammals  where 
they  touch  the  ground  are  quite  hairless  ;  the  palms  of  the  hands 
in  the  quadrumana  present  the  same  appearance.  The  knees  of 
those  species  which  frequently  kneel,  such  as  camels  and  other 
ruminants,  are  apt  to  become  bare  and  hard-skinned.  The 
friction  of  the  water  has  been  the  means  of  removing  the  hair 
from  many  aquatic  mammals — the  whales,  porpoises,  dugongs, 
and  manatees  are  examples. 

As  the  back  of  man  forms  the  specially  hairless  region  of  his 
body,  we  must  conclude  that  it  is  in  all  probability  the  first  part 
which  became  entirely  denuded  of  hair.  The  gorilla,  according 
to  Professor  Gervais,  is  the  only  mammal  which  agrees  with  man 
in  having  the  hair  thinner  on  the  back,  where  it  is  partly  rubbed 
off,  than  on  the  lower  surface.  Du  Chaillu  states  that  he  has 
"  himself  come  upon  fresh  traces  of  a  gorilla's  bed  on  several  oc- 
casions, and  could  see  that  the  male  had  seated  himself  with  his 
back  against  a  tree-trunk/'  He  also  says  :  "  In  both  male  and 
female  the  hair  is  found  worn  off  the  back  ;  but  this  is  only 
found  in  very  old  females.  This  is  occasioned,  I  suppose,  by 
their  resting  at  night  against  trees,  at  whose  base  they  sleep." 
The  gorilla  has  only  very  partially  acquired  the  erect  position, 
and  probably  sits  but  little  in  the  attitude  common  to  man.  In 
man  the  case  is  different ;  in  proportion  as  his  progenitors  grew 
more  and  more  erect,  he  must  have  lain  less  and  less  upon  his 
stomach,  and  more  and  more  upon  his  back  or  sides,  and  this  is 
seen  in  the  savage  man  during  his  lazy  hours — who  stretches 
himself  on  the  ground  in  the  sun,  with  his  back  propped,  where 
possible,  by  a  slight  mound  or  the  wall  of  his  hut.  The  con- 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  99 

tinual  friction  of  the  surface  of  the  back  would  arrest  the  growth 
of  hair  ;  for  hair  grows  where  there  is  normally  less  friction,  and 
vice  versa. 

As  man  became  more  and  more  hairless,  especially  among 
savage  and  naked  races,  we  should  conclude  that  such  a  modi- 
fication would  be  considered  a  beauty,  and  women  would  select 
such  men  in  preference  to  more  hairy  individuals.  The  New 
Zealand  proverb  is  :  "  There  is  no  woman  for  a  hairy  man." 
Sexual  selection,  then,  would  play  a  very  important  part ;  and 
the  difficulty  of  understanding  how  man  became  divested  of  hair 
is  readily  explained. 

Haeckel  says  :  "Even  if  we  knew  absolutely  nothing  of  the 
other  phenomena  of  development,  we  should  be  obliged  to  believe 
in  the  truth  of  the  theory  of  descent,  solely  on  the  ground  of  the 
existence  of  rudimentary  organs." 


REPRODUCTION  BY  MEANS  OF  EGGS. 

It  might  be  thought  there  existed  a  missing  link  between 
animals  .which  lay  eggs  and  those  which  do  not ;  this,  however, 
is  done  away  with  in  many  instances — one,  for  example,  is  found 
in  our  commonest  indigenous  snake.  The  ringed  snake  lays  eggs 
which  require  three  weeks  time  to  develop  ;  but  when  it  is  kept 
in  captivity,  and  no  sand  is  strewn  in  the  cage,  it  does  not  lay 
eggs,  but  retains  them  until  the  young  ones  are  developed.  This 
only  shows  how  powerfully  influences  affect  the  habit  of  animals. 


DOUBLE-SEXED    INDIVID  HALS. 

Another  difficulty  might  be  supposed  to  arise  between  animals 
which  produce  themselves  other  than  by  sexual  reproduction. 
This  has  already  been  slightly  touched  upon  ;  and  it  has  been 


98  THE    RUDIMENTARY    HAIR    ON    MAN. 

are  worthy  of  careful  consideration.  He  shows  conclusively  that 
those  parts  'of  an  animal  which  are  in  constant  contact  with  other 
objects  are  specially  liable  to  lose  their  hair.  This  is  noticeable 
on  the  under  surface  of  the  body  of  all  animals  which  habitually 
lie  on  the  stomach.  The  soles  of  the  feet  of  all  mammals  where 
they  touch  the  ground  are  quite  hairless  ;  the  palms  of  the  hands 
in  the  quadrumana  present  the  same  appearance.  The  knees  of 
those  species  which  frequently  kneel,  such  as  camels  and  other 
ruminants,  are  apt  to  become  bare  and  hard-skinned.  The 
friction  of  the  water  has  been  the  means  of  removing  the  hair 
from  many  aquatic  mammals — the  whales,  porpoises,  dugongs, 
and  manatees  are  examples. 

As  the  back  of  man  forms  the  specially  hairless  region  of  his 
body,  we  must  conclude  that  it  is  in  all  probability  the  first  part 
which  became  entirely  denuded  of  hair.  The  gorilla,  according 
to  Professor  Gervais,  is  the  only  mammal  which  agrees  with  man 
in  having  the  hair  thinner  on  the  back,  where  it  is  partly  rubbed 
off,  than  on  the  lower  surface.  Du  Chaillu  states  that  he  has 
"  himself  come  upon  fresh  traces  of  a  gorilla's  bed  on  several  oc- 
casions, and  could  see  that  the  male  had  seated  himself  with  his 
back  against  a  tree- trunk."  He  also  says  :  "In  both  male  and 
female  the  hair  is  found  worn  off  the  back  ;  but  this  is  only 
found  in  very  old  females.  This  is  occasioned,  I  suppose,  by 
their  resting  at  night  against  trees,  at  whose  base  they  sleep." 
The  gorilla  has  only  very  partially  acquired  the  erect  position, 
and  probably  sits  but  little  in  the  attitude  common  to  man.  In 
man  the  case  is  different ;  in  proportion  as  his  progenitors  grew 
more  and  more  erect,  he  must  have  lain  less  and  less  upon  his 
stomach,  and  more  and  more  upon  his  back  or  sides,  and  this  is 
seen  in  the  savage  man  during  his  lazy  hours — who  stretches 
himself  on  the  ground  in  the  sun,  with  his  back  propped,  where 
possible,  by  a  slight  mound  or  the  wall  of  his  hut.  The  con- 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  99 

tinual  friction  of  the  surface  of  the  back  would  arrest  the  growth 
of  hair  ;  for  hair  grows  where  there  is  normally  less  friction,  and 
vice  versa. 

As  man  became  more  and  more  hairless,  especially  among 
savage  and  naked  races,  we  should  conclude  that  such  a  modi- 
fication would  be  considered  a  beauty,  and  women  would  select 
such  men  in  preference  to  more  hairy  individuals.  The  New 
Zealand  proverb  is  :  "  There  is  no  woman  for  a  hairy  man." 
Sexual  selection,  then,  would  play  a  very  important  part ;  and 
the  difficulty  of  understanding  how  man  became  divested  of  hair 
is  readily  explained. 

Haeckel  says  :  "Even  if  we  knew  absolutely  nothing  of  the 
other  phenomena  of  development,  we  should  be  obliged  to  believe 
in  the  truth  of  the  theory  of  descent,  solely  on  the  ground  of  the 
existence  of  rudimentary  organs." 


REPRODUCTION  BY  MEANS  OF  EGGS. 

It  might  be  thought  there  existed  a  missing  link  between 
animals  .which  lay  eggs  and  those  which  do  not ;  this,  however, 
is  done  away  with  in  many  instances — one,  for  example,  is  found 
in  our  commonest  indigenous  snake.  The  ringed  snake  lays  eggs 
which  require  three  weeks  time  to  develop  ;  but  when  it  is  kept 
in  captivity,  and  no  sand  is  strewn  in  the  cage,  it  does  not  lay 
eggs,  but  retains  them  until  the  young  ones  are  developed.  This 
only  shows  how  powerfully  influence's  affect  the  habit  of  animals. 

DOUBLE-SEXED    INDIVIDUALS. 

Another  difficulty  might  be  supposed  to  arise  between  animals 
which  produce  themselves  other  than  by  sexual  reproduction. 
This  has  already  been  slightly  touched  upon ;  and  it  has  been 


100  DOUBLE-SEXED    INDIVIDUALS. 

shown  that  numerous  plants  and  animals  propagate  themselves 
through  their  double-sexed  organs.  It  occurs  in  a  great  majority 
of  plants,  but  only  in  a  minority  of  animals  ;  for  example,  the 
garden-snail,  leeches,  earth-worms,  and  many  other  worms. 
Every  garden-snail  produces  in  one  part  of  its  sexual  gland  eggs, 
and  in  another  part  sperm. 

Parthenogenesis  offers  an  interesting  form  of  transition  from 
sexual  reproduction  to  the  non-sexual  formation  of  germ-cells 
(which  most  resembles  it).  It  has  been  demonstrated  to  occur 
in  many  cases  among  insects,  especially  by  Seebold's  excellent  in- 
vestigations. Among  the  common  bees,  a  male  individual  (a 
drone)  arises  out  of  the  eggs  of  the  queen,  if  the  eggs  have  not 
been  fructified ;  a  female  (a  queen  or  working  bee),  if  the  egg 
has  been  fructified. 

Gonochorismus  or  sexual  separation,  which  characterizes  the 
more  complicated  of  the  two  kinds  of  sexual  reproduction,  has 
evidently  been  developed  from  the  condition  of  hermaphroditism 
at  a  late  period  of  the  organic  history  of  the  world.  In  this  case 
the  female  individual  in  both  animal  and  plant  produces  eggs  or 
egg-cells.  In  animals,  the  male  individual  secretes  the  fructify- 
ing sperm  (sperma) ;  in  plants,  the  corpuscles,  which  correspond 
to  the  sperm. 

INHEBITANCE. 

The  remarkable  facts  of  inheritance,  extending  to  the  repro- 
duction of  unimportant  peculiarities  of  parts  or  organs  (rudi- 
mentary parts)  mentioned  above,  and  the  occasional  outbreak  of 
ancestral  characters  that  have  been  dormant  through  several 
generations  (some  of  which  I  will  mention  further  on),  might  be 
thought  perfectly  unexplainable  ;  but  they  are  readily  accounted 
for  by  the  supposition  that  each  part  of  an  organism  contributes 
its  constituent  and  effective  molecules  to  the  germ  and  sperm 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  101 

particles.  Mr.  Sorby  made  numerous  investigations  with  relation 
to  the  number  of  molecules  in  the  germinal  matter  of  eggs,  and 
the  spermatic  matter  supplied  by  the  male.  Omitting  the  alkali, 
Mr.  Sorby  takes  the  formula,  C72H,  I2NI8S022,  as  representing 
the  composition  of  albumen.  In  a  ^gW  °^  an  mcn  cube,  ne 
reckons— 

Albumen 18,000,000,000,000  molecules. 

Water 992,000,000,000,000         " 

1,010,000,000,000,000  molecules. 

Or,  in  a  sphere  of  the  same  diameter,  530,000,000,000,000  of  the 
two  components.  Taking  a  single  mammalian  spermatozoon, 
having  a  mean  diameter  of  $-^-3  of  an  inch,  "  it  might  contain 
two  and  a  half  million  of  such  gemmules.  If  these  were  lost, 
destroyed,  or  fully  developed  at  the  rate  of  one  in  each  second, 
this  number  would  be  exhausted  in  about  one  month  ;  but  since 
a  number  of  spermatozoa  appears  to  be  necessary  to  produce  per- 
fect fertilization,  it  is  quite  easy  to  understand  that  the  number 
of  gemmules  introduced  into  the  ovum  may  be  so  great  that  the 
influence  of  the  male  parent  may  be  very  marked,  even  after 
having  been,  as  regards  particular  character,  apparently  dormant 
for  many  years/'  The  germinal  vesicle  of  a  mammalian  ovum 
being  about  yoW  of  an  inch,  mean  diameter,  might  contain  five 
hundred  million  of  gemmules,  which,  if  used  up  at  the  rate  of 
one  per  second,  would  last  more  than  seventeen  years.  If  the 
whole  ovum,  about  TJ7  in  diameter,  were  all  gemmules,  the  num- 
ber would  be  sufficient  to  last,  at  this  rate,  one  per  second  for 
5,600  years  !  This,  however,  is  not  probable  ;  but  Mr.  Sorby^ 
remarks  has  completely  removed  all  doubt  as  to  its  physical  pos- 
sibility from  the  Darwinian  theory  ;  "  and  they  prompt  us,"  says 
Slack,  ato  a  wonderful  conception  of  the  powers  residing  in 
minute  quantities  of  matter." 


103  INHERITANCE. 

The  laws  of  inheritance  are  divisible  into  two  series,  con- 
servative and  progressive  transmission ;  the  laws  of  adaptation 
to  direct  (active)  or  indirect  (potential)  adaptation. 

External  causes  often  influence  the  reproductive  system, 
especially  in  organism  propagating  in  a  sexual  way.  This  can 
be  strikingly  shown  in  artificially  produced  monstrosities.  Mon- 
strosities can  be  produced  by  subjecting  the  parental  organism 
to  certain  extraordinary  conditions  of  life  ;  and  curiously  enough, 
such  an  extraordinary  condition  of  life  does  not  produce  a  change 
of  the  organism  itself,  but  a  change  in  its  descendants.  The 
new  formation  exists  in  the  parental  organism  only  as  a  possi- 
bility (potential) ;  in  the  descendants  it  becomes  a  reality 
(actual).  Most  commonly,  monstrosities  with  very  abnormal 
forms  are  sterile,  but  there  are  instances  where  they  reproduce 
their  kind  and  become  a  species.*  Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire,  who 
perhaps  made  the  deepest  investigations  ever  conducted  into 
the  nature  and  causes  of  their  production,  first  conceived  the 
idea  of  artificially  producing  them,  and  to  this  end  he  began 
modifications  of  the  physical  conditions  of  the  evolution  of  the 
chicken  during  natural  and  artificial  incubation.  He  determined 
the  fact  that  monsters  could  be  produced  in  this  way,  but 
scarcely  carried  his  investigation  further.  This  work  has  been 
taken  up  by  M.  Dareste,  and  he  has  lately  published  a  volume 
in  Paris  which  recounts  the  results  of  a  quarter  of  a  century's 
experimenting.  Eggs,  he  states,  were  submitted  to  incubation 
in  a  vertical  instead  of  a  horizontal  position  ;  they  were  covered 
with  varnish  in  certain  places  so  as  to  stop  or  modify  evapora- 
tion and  respiration.  The  evolution  of  the  chick  was  rendered 
slower  by  a  temperature  below  that  of  the  normal  heat  of  incu- 
bation. Finally,  eggs  were  warmed  only  at  one  point,  so  that 

*  See  Sci.  Am.,  May  18,  1878. 


Fig.  1 


Fig.  2. 


Fig.  3. 


Fig.  4 


c... 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  105 

the  young  animal,  during  development,  was  submitted  at 
different  parts  to  variable  temperatures. 

These  perturbations  resulted  in  the  most  curious  and  unlocked 
for  deformities  in  the  embryo,  some  being  not  alone  peculiar  to 
the  bird,  but  being  similar  to  those  which  have  been  recognized 
in  many  other  animals,  and  even  in  the  human  species.  The 
data  obtained  have  been  deemed  so  important  that  M.  Dareste 
has  recently  received  the  Lacaze  prize  for  physiology  from  the 
French  Academy  of  Sciences. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  review  even  a  fraction  of  the  many 
forms  of  monstrosities  which  M.  Dareste  has  discovered.  Those 
that  we  give  will,  however,  suffice  to  convey  an  idea  of  the 
wonderful  variations  produced.  Fig.  1  is  a  chick  embryo  with 
the  encephalon  entirely  outside  the  head,  the  heart,  liver,  and 
gizzard  outside  the  umbilical  opening,  right  wing  lifted  up 
beside  the  head,  and  the  development  of  the  left  one  stopped. 
In  Fig.  2  the  encephalon  is  herniated  and  marked  with  blood 
spots,  the  eye  is  rudimentary  and  replaced  by  a  spot  of  pigment, 
the  upper  beak  is  shorter  than  the  lower  one,  while  the  heart, 
liver,  etc.,  are  all  outside.  In  Figs.  3  and  4  the  head  is  com- 
pressed, eyes  well  developed,  but  in  the  back  instead  of  in  the 
sides  of  the  head ;  the  body  is  bent,  abdominal  intestines  not 
closed,  heart  largely  developed  and  herniated.  The  literal  refer- 
ences to  the  foregoing  are  :  am,  amnion  ;  al,  allantois  ;  v,  vitel- 
lus  ;  A,  encephalon  ;  *,  eye  ;  c,  heart ;  /,  liver  ;  g,  gizzard  ;  ms, 
upper,  and  mi,  lower  member. 

The  commonest  case  of  monstrosity  observed  by  M.  Dareste 
has  been  that  of  the  head  protruding  from  the  navel,  and  the 
heart  or  hearts  above  the  head.  This  is  a  most  extraordinary 
and  new  monster,  and,  if  it  persist,  a  chicken  with  its  heart  on 
its  back,  like  a  hump,  may  be  expected.  A  curious  fact  discov- 
ered is  the  duplicity  of  the  heart  at  the  beginning  of  incubation, 


106  ARTIFICIAL    MONSTROSITIES. 

two  hearts,  beating  separately,  being  clearly  seen.  Another 
anomaly  consists  in  heads  with  a  frontal  swelling,  which  is  filled 
by  the  cerebral  hemispheres. 

M.  Dareste's  artificial  monsters  are  all  produced  from  the 
single  germ  or  cicatricule  (as  the  white  circular  spot  seen  in  the 
yellow  of  the  egg,  and  from  which  the  embryo  springs,  is  termed). 
He  has  not  yet  been  able  to  determine  artificially  the  production 
of  monsters,  the  origin  of  which  takes  place  in  a  peculiar  state 
of  the  cicatricule  before  incubation.  But  having  submitted  to 
incubation  some  10,000  eggs,  he  has  obtained  several  remarkable 
examples  of  double  monstrosities  in  process  of  formation,  some 
representations  of  which  are  given  herewith.  Fig.  5  shows  three 
embryos,  all  derived  from  a  single  cicatricule.  Fig  6  represents 
three  embryos  from  two  cicatricules.  On  one  side  of  the  line  of 
junction  are  two  imperfectly  developed  embryos,  one  having  no 
heart.  The  single  embryo  on  the  other  side  is  generally  normal, 
but  has  a  heart  on  the  right  side.  In  Fig.  7  are  twins,  one  well 
formed,  the  heart  circulating  colorless  blood,  the  other  having  no 
heart  and  a  rudimentary  head.  Fig.  8  exhibits  a  double  monster 
with  lateral  union.  The  heads  are  separate,  and  there  are  three 
upper  and  three  lower  members,  those  of  the  latter  on  the  median 
line  belonging  equally  to  each  of  the  pair. 

ACQUIRED    QUALITIES. 

When  an  organism  has  been  subjected  to  abnormal  condi- 
tions in  life  it  can  transmit  any  peculiarity  it  may  have  acquired. 
This  is,  however,  not  always  possible,  otherwise  descendants  of 
men  who  have  lost  their  arm  or  leg  would  be  born  without  the 
corresponding  arm  or  leg — this  shows  that  some  acquired 
qualities  are  more  easily  transmitted  than  others  —  although 
there  are  cases,  as,  for  instance,  a  race  of  dogs  without  tails  has 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  107 

been  produced  by  cutting  off  the  tails  of  both  sexes  of  the  dog, 
during  several  generations.  "  A  few  years  ago,"  says  Haeckel, 
"a  case  occurred  on  an  estate  near  Jena  in  which,  by  the  careless 
slamming  of  a  stable-door,  the  tail  of  a  bull  was  wrenched  off, 
and  the  calves  begotten  by  this  bull  were  all  born  without  a 
tail.  This  is  certainly  an  exception  ;  but  it  is  very  important  to 
note  the  fact  that  under  certain  unknown  conditions  such  violent 
changes  are  transmitted  in  the  same  manner  as  many  diseases." 
The  transmission  of  diseases  such  as  consumption,  madness,  and 
albinism  form  examples.  Albinoes  are  those  individuals  who 
are  distinguished  by  the  absence  of  coloring  matter  from  their 
skins  ;  they  are  of  frequent  occurrence  among  men,  animals  and 
plants.  Among  many  animals,  such  as  rabbits  and  mice, 
albinoes  with  white  fur  and  red  eyes  are  so  much  liked  that 
they  are  propagated.  This  would  be  impossible  were  it  not  for 
the  law  of  the  transmission  of  adaptations.  Hornless  cattle  have 
descended  from  a  single  bull  born  in  1770  of  horned  parents,  but 
whose  absence  of  horns  was  the  result  of  some  unknown  cause. 

The  law  of  interrupted  or  latent  transmission,  as  illustrated 
in  grandchildren  who  are  like  the  grandparents,  but  quite  unlike 
the  parents.  Animals  often  resume  a  form  which  have  not 
existed  for  many  generations.  One  of  the  most  remarkable 
instances  of  this  kind  of  reversion,  or  "atavism,"  is  the  fact 
that  in  some  horses  there  sometimes  appear  singular  dark  stripes 
similar  to  those  of  the  zebra,  quagga,  and  other  wild  species  of 
African  horse. 

Nutrition  directly  modifies  adaptation,  as  is  well  illustrated 
by  animals  which  have  been  bred  for  domestic  or  other  pur- 
poses. If  a  farmer  is  breeding  for  fine  wool  he  gives  much 
different  food  to  the  sheep  than  he  would  if  he  wished  to  obtain 
flesh  or  an  abundance  of  fat.  Even  the  bodily  form  of  man  is 
quite  different  according  to  its  nutrition.  Food  containing 


108  GEOLOGICAL    RECORD. 

much  nitrogen  produces  little  fat,  that  containing  little  nitrogen 
produces  a  great  deal  of  fat.  People  who  by  means  of  Banting's 
system,  at  present  so  popular,  wish  to  become  thin,  eat  only  meat 
and  eggs — no  bread,  no  potatoes. 

Man  can  breed  for  milk  in  cattle,  for  feathers  in  pigeons,  for 
colored  flowers  in  plants,  and,  in  fact,  for  almost  any  desirable 
quality. 

GEOLOGICAL    EEOOED. 

The  Geological  Record  (paleontology)  furnishes  weighty  evi- 
dence of  man's  descent ;  for  the  circumstantial  evidence  derived 
from  this  source  is  written  without  the  possibility  of  a  mistake, 
with  no  chance  of  error,  on  the  stratified  rocks.  It  is  true  that 
the  geological  record  must  be  incomplete,  because  it  can  only 
preserve  remains  found  in  certain  favorable  localities,  and  under 
particular  conditions ;  that  this  valuable  record  must  be  de- 
stroyed by  processes  of  denudation,  and  obliterated  by  pro- 
cesses of  metamorphosis,  it  cannot  be  doubted.  "  Beds  of  rock 
of  any  thickness,  crammed  full  of  organic  remains,  may  yet,"  says 
Huxley,  "  by  the  percolation  of  water  through  them,  or  the  in- 
fluence of  subterranean  heat  (if  they  descend  far  enough  toward 
the  centre  of  the  earth),  lose  all  trace  of  these  remains,  and  present 
the  appearance  of  beds  of  rock  formed  under  conditions  in  which 
there  was  no  trace  of  living  forms.  Such  metamorphic  rocks 
occur  in  formations  of  all  ages  ;  and  we  know  with  perfect  cer- 
tainty, when  they  do  appear,  that  they  have  contained  organic 
remains,  and  that  those  remains  have  been  absolutely  obliterated." 
If  we  look  at  the  geological  record,  we  find  : 

THE  FIRST  EPOCH. — The  Archilithic,  or  Primordial  Epoch, 
constitutes  the  Age  of  Skull-less  Animals  and  Sea-weed  Forests, 
and  is  made  up  of  the  Laurentian,  Cambrian,  and  Silurian  Period. 

THE  SECOND  EPOCH. — The  Palceolithic,  or  Primary  Epoch, 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  109 

constitutes  the  Age  of  Fishes  and  Fern  Forests,  and  is  made  up 
of  the  Devonian,  Coal,  and  Permian  Period. 

THE  THIRD  EPOCH. — The  Mesolithic,  or  Secondary  Epoch, 
constitutes  the  Age  of  ^Reptiles  and  Pine  Forests,  Coniferce,  and 
is  made  up  of  the  Triassic,  Jurassic,  and  Chalk  Period. 

THE  FOURTH  EPOCH. — The  Ccenolithic,  or  Tertiary  Epoch, 
constitutes  the  Age  of  Mammals  and  Leaf  Forests,  and  is  made, 
up  of  the  Eocene,  Miocene,  and  Phocene  Period. 

THE  FIFTH  EPOCH.— The  Anthropolithic,  or  Quaternary 
Epoch,  constitutes  the  Age  of  Man  and  Cultivated  Forests, 
and  is  made  up  of  the  Glacial  and  Postglacial  Period,  and  the 
Period  of  Culture. 

During  the  archilithic  epoch  the  inhabitants  of  our  planet,  as 
has  been  already  stated,  consisted  of  skull-less  animals,  or  aquatic 
forms.  No  remains  of  terrestrial  animals  or  plants,  dated  from 
this  period,  have  as  yet  been  found. 

The  archilithic  period  was  longer  than  the  whole  long  period 
between  the  close  of  the  archilithic  and  the  present  time  ;  for  if 
the  total  thickness  of  all  sedimentary  strata  be  estimated  as  about 
one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  feet,  then  seventy  thousand  feet 
belong  to  this  epoch.  It  was  during  this  epoch  that  the  little 
mass  of  protoplasm,  which  has  been  so  often  spoken  of,  came  into 
existence. 

It  has  been  stated  above  that  palaeontology  is  quite  deficient. 
This  is  not  only  true  of  the  record,  but  of  the  lack  as  yet  of 
sufficient  investigations.  The  greatest  fields  of  investigation  in 
this  department  have  never  been  explored.  The  whole  of  the 
petrifactions  accurately  known  do  not  probably  amount  to  a  hun- 
dredth part  of  those  which,  by  more  elaborate  explorations,  are 
yet  to  be  discovered.  The  most  ancient  of  all  distinctly  pre- 
served petrifactions  is  the  Eozoon  Canadense,  which  was  found 
in  the  lowest  Laurentian  strata  in  the  Ottawa  formation. 


110.  ONTOGENY. 

Probably  no  discovery  in  palaeontology  ranks  higher  than  the 
discovery  of  the  descendants  of  the  horse.  The  horse,  for  exam- 
ple, as  far  as  his  limbs  and  teeth  go,  differs  far  more  from  extant 
graminivora  than  man  differs  from  the  ape.  Had  not  fossil  un- 
gulates been  found,  which  demonstrate  the  common  origin  of  the 
horse  with  didactyles  and  multidactyles,  some  would  have  desmed 
the  horse  a  special  miraculous  creation.  But  now  the  links  are 
complete,  and  the  descent  of  the  horse  is  found  to  follow  exactly 
what  the  doctrine  of  evolution  could  have  predicted. 

ONTOGENY. 

It  has  been  stated  that  the  palaeontological  record  is  quite 
incomplete,  owing  to  many  facts,  some  of  which  have  been  men- 
tioned ;  fortunately,  the  history  of  the  development  of  the  organic 
individual,  or  ontogeny,  comes  in  to  fill  up  many  deficiencies. 

Ontogeny  is  a  repetition  of  the  principal  forms  through  which 
the  respective  individuals  have  passed  from  the  beginning  of  their 
tribe,  and  its  great  advantage  is  that  it  reveals  a  field  of  informa- 
tion which  it  was  impossible  for  the  rocks  to  retain ;  for  the  petri- 
fication  of  the  ancient  ancestors  of  all  the  different  animal 
and  vegetable  species,  which  were  soft,  tender  bodies,  was  not 
possible. 

The  annexed  plate  illustrates  the  dog,  rabbit,  and  man  in 
their  first  stages  of  development.  Illustrations  of  a  fish,  an 
amphibious  animal,  a  reptile,  a  bird,  or  any  mammal,  could  also 
be  given  ;  for  all  vertebrate  'animals  of  the  most  different  classes, 
in  their  early  stages  of  development,  cannot  be  distinguished,  and 
the  nearer  the  animal  approaches  man  in  the  ascending  scale, 
the  longer  does  this  similarity  continue  to  exist — when  reptiles 
and  birds  are  distinctly  different  from  mammals,  the  dog  and 
the  man  are  almost  identical. 

The  gill-arches  of  the  fish  exist  in  man,  in  dcgs,  in  fowls,  in 


Fig.    I. 


Fig.    IV. 


Fig.    VII. 


II 


Fig.    V.  Fig.    VIII 


FIG.  I.— Human  Embryo.— Ecker. 

FIG.  II.— Embryo  of  Tiog.—Bischoff. 

FIG.  III.— Dog  Embryo.— Huxley. 

FIGS.  IV,  V,  and  VI.- Embryo  of  Rabbit  in 
three  stages  of  development.— Haeckel. 

FIGS.  VH.  VIII.  and  IX.— Embryo  of  Man  in 
three  stages  of  development.—  Hatckel.  v,  fore- 
brain  ;  2,  twix  brain  ;  m,  middle  brain ;  h, 
hind  brain  ;  n,  after  brain  ;  r,  spinal  marrow  ; 
e,  nose ;  a,  eye  ;  0,  ear  ;  k,  gillarches ;  g,  heart. : 
w,  vertebral  column  :  f.  fore  limbs  :  ft,  hind 
limbs  ;  #,  tail. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  113 

reptiles,  and  in  other  vertebrate  animals  during  the  first  stages 
of  their  development.  Man  also  possesses,  in  his  first  stages,  a 
real  tail,  as  well  as  his  nearest  kindred — the  tailless  apes  (orang- 
outang, chimpanzee,  gorilla),  and  vertebrate  animals  in  general. 
The  tail,  as  has  been  stated,  man  still  retains,  though  hidden  as 
a  rudiment. 

"  Man  presents  in  his  earliest  stages  of  embryonic  growth,  a 
skeleton  of  cartilage,  like  that  of  the  lamprey  ;  also,  five  origins 
of  the  aorta  and  five  slits  on  the  neck,  like  the  lamprey  and  the 
shark.  Later,  he  has  but  four  aortic  origins,  and  a  heart  now 
divided  into  two  chambers,  like  bony  fishes  ;  the  optic  lobes  of 
his  brain  also  having  a  very  fish-like  predominance  in  size.  Three 
chambers  of  the  heart  and  three  aortic  origins  follow,  presenting 
a  condition  permanent  in  the  batrachia  ;  then  two  origins  with 
enlarged  hemispheres  of  the  brain,  as  in  reptiles.  Four  heart 
chambers  and  one  aortic  root  on  each  side,  with  slight  develop- 
ment of  the  cerebellum,  agree  with  the  characters  of  the  croco- 
diles, and  immediately  present  the  special  mammalian  condi- 
tions, single  aortic  root,  and  the  full  development  of  the  cerebel- 
bellum.  Later  comes  that  of  the  cerebrum,  also  in  its  higher 
mammalian  or  human  traits/'  At  no  time  in  the  development 
of  the  egg,  save  at  the  start,  do  the  embryos  of  the  various 
vertebra  assume  the  exact  or  entire  characteristics  of  one  another, 
but  they  assimilate  so  closely  that  it  requires  the  eye  of  the  ex- 
pert to  distinguish  them  ;  and,  as  has  already  been  stated,  the 
more  closely  an  animal  resembles  another,  the  longer  and  the 
more  intimately  do  their  embryos  resemble  one  another  ;  so  that, 
for  example,  the  embryo  of  the  snake  and  of  a  lizard  remain  like 
one  another  longer  than  do  those  of  a  snake  and  of  a  bird  ;  and 
the  embryo  of  a  dog  and  of  a  cat  remain  like  one  another  for  a 
far  longer  period  than  do  those  of  a  dog  and  a  bird,  or  a  dog  and 
an  opossum,  or  even  those  of  a  dog  and  a  monkey. 


114  ONTOGENY. 

Surely  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  short  brief  history  given 
by  the  development  of  the  egg,  is  far  more  wonderful  than 
phylogeny  or  the  long  and  slow  history  of  the  development  of 
the  tribe,  which  has  taken  thousands  of  years.  Compare  this 
time  with  the  time  required  for  the  development  of  the  smallest 
mammals — the  harvest  mice  which  develops  in  three  weeks,  or 
the  smallest  of  all  birds,  the  humming-bird,  which  quits  the 
egg  on  the  twelfth  day,  or  with  man  who  passes  through  the 
whole  course  of  his  development  in  forty  weeks,  or  with  the 
rhinoceros  who  requires  1^  years,  or  the  elephant  who  requires 
ninety  weeks.  How  insignificant  are  these  various  periods  to  the 
long  period  originally  required ;  yet  in  these  short  periods  the 
whole  phylogeny  is  run  through  in  the  ontogeny  or  the  history 
of  the  development  of  the  egg. 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  MAN. 


"TTTE  must  now  consider  briefly  some  of  the  attributes  of 
man,  and  see  if  he  really  possesses  attributes  which  are 
in  no  inferior  degree  possessed  by  animals.  Before  proceeding 
directly  to  the  consideration  of  the  attributes  of  man,  it  will  be 
best  to  show  the  correlation  that  exists  between  what  are  called 
man's  vital  forces  and  the  physical  forces  of  nature.  To  do  this 
let  us  choose  three  forms  of  its  manifestation  :  these  shall  be 
heat  evolved  within  the  body ;  muscular  energy  or  motion  ;  and 
lastly,  nervous  energy  or  that  form  of  force  which,  on  the  one 
hand,  stimulates  a  muscle  to  contract,  and  on  the  other  appears 
in  forms  called  mental.  It  will  not  take  any  extensive  argument 
to  demonstrate  that  the  heat  of  the  body  does  not  differ  from 
heat  from  any  other  source.  It  is  known  that  the  food  taken 
into  the  body  contains  potential  energy,  which  is  capable  of 
being  in  part  converted  into  actual  heat  by  oxidation  ;  and  since 
we  know  that  the  food  taken  into  the  body  is  oxidized  by  the 
oxygen  of  the  air  supplied  by  the  lungs,  the  heat  of  the  body 
must  be  due  to  the  slow  oxidation  of  the  carbon,  perhaps  also 
hydrogen,  sulphur,  and  phosphorus  in  the  food.  Now  since  this 
so-called  vital  heat  is  developed  by  oxidation,  is  recognized  by 
the  same  tests  and  applied  to  the  same  purposes  as  any  other 
heat,  it  is  as  truly  correlated  to  the  other  forces  as  when  it  has 
a  purely  physical  origin.  The  amoeboid  activity  of  a  white 

blood  corpuscle  is  stimulated   within   certain  limits  by  heat. 

115 


116  MUSCULAR    FORCE. 

Hatching  of  eggs  and  the  germination  of  seeds  may  be  likewise 
hastened  or  retarded  by  access  or  deprivation  of  heat.  It  was 
considerations  such  as  these  which  led  to  the  doctrine  of  correla- 
tion of  the  vital  and  physical  forces. 

With  respect  to  the  muscular  force  exerted  by  an  animal,  it 
was  supposed  that  it  was  created  by  the  animal.  Dr.  Frankland* 
says  to  this :  "  An  animal  can  no  more  generate  an  amount  of 
force  capable  of  moving  a  grain  of  sand,  than  a  stone  can  fall 
upwards  or  a  locomotive  drive  a  train  without  fuel."  As  the 
amount  of  C02  exhaled  by  the  lungs  is  increased  in  the  exact 
ratio  of  work  done  by  the  muscle,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that 
the  actual  force  of  the  muscle  is  due  to  the  converted  potential 
energy  of  the  food.  Since  every  exertion  of  a  muscle  and  nerves 
involves  the  death  and  decay  of  those  tissues  to  a  certain  extent, 
as  shown  by  the  excretions,  Prof.  Ortonf  has  been  led  to  say : 
"  An  animal  begins  to  die  the  moment  it  begins  to  live."  "  A 
muscle,"  says  Barker,$  "  is  like  a  steam-engine,  is  a  machine  for 
converting  the  potential  energy  of  carbon  into  motion;  but 
unlike  a  steam-engine,  the  muscle  accomplishes  this  conversion 
directly,  the  energy  not  passing  through  the  intermediate  stages 
of  heat.  For  this  reason  the  muscle  is  the  most  economical 
producer  of  mechanical  force  known."  The  muscles  which  give 
the  downward  stroke  of  the  wing  of  a  bird  are  fastened  to  the 
breastbone,  and  their  power  in  proportion  to  the  weight  of  the 
bird  is  as  10,000  to  1.  This  great  power  is  needed,  for  the  air  is 
770  times  lighter  than  water  ;  the  hawk  being  able  to  travel 
150  miles  an  hour. 

The  last  of  the  so-called  vital  forces  under  consideration,  is 

*  Source  of  Muscular  Power,  Proc.  Roy.  Inst.,  June  8,  1866.     Am.  I.  Sci., 
II,  xlii,  393,  Nov.  1866. 

f  Comparative  Zoology,  p.  45. 

\  Correlation  of  the  Vital  and  Physical  Forces,  p.  54. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  117 

that  produced  by  the  nerves  and  nervous  centres.  Barker  says  : 
"  In  the  nerve  which  stimulates  a  muscle  to  contract,  this  force 
is  undeniably  motion,  since  it  is  propagated  along  this  nerve 
from  one  extremity  to  the  other."  This  force  has  been  likened 
unto  electricity,  the  gray  or  cellular  matter  being  the  battery, 
the  white  or  fibrous  matter  the  conductors.  Du  Bois  Keymond* 
has  demonstrated  that  this  force  is  not  electricity,  though  by  show- 
ing that  its  velocity  is  only  ninety-seven  feet  a  second.  The 
velocity  varies,  though,  in  different  animals  ;  it  is,  according  to 
Prof.  Orton,f  "  more  rapid  in  warm-blooded  than  in  cold-blooded 
animals,  being  nearly  twice  as  fast  in  man  as  in  the  frog."  Wheat- 
stone,  by  his  method,  gives  the  velocity  of  electricity  in  copper 
wire  at  62,000  geographical  miles  per  second ;  but  as  neither 
Fizeau,  Gould,  Gonnelle  and  others  could  arrive  at  the  same  result, 
the  method  was  shown  to  be  incorrect,  and  it  remained  for  Dr. 
SiemenJ  to  discover  the  true  method,  which  gives  the  velocity 
just  one-half  that  of  Wheatstone's  estimate,  or  31,000  geo- 
graphical miles  per  second.  In  the  opinion  of  Bence  Jones, 
the  propagation  of  a  nervous  impulse  is  a  sort  of  successive 
molecular  polarization,  like  magnetism.  But  that  this  agent  is  a 
force  as  analogous  to  electricity  as  is  magnetism,  is  shown  not  only 
by  the  fact  that  the  transmission  of  electricity  along  a  nerve  will 
cause  the  contraction  of  a  muscle  to  which  it  leads,  but  also  by  the 
important  fact  discovered  by  Marshall,  that  the  contraction  of  a 
muscle  is  excited  by  diminishing  its  normal  electrical  current,§  a 
result  which  could  take  place  only  with  a  stimulus,  says  Barker, 
"closely  allied  to  electricity.  Nerve  force  must  therefore  be 
transmuted  potential  energy."  Prof.  Huxley  says,||  "  the  results 

*  On   the  time  required  for  the  transmission  of  volition  and  sensation 
through  the  nerves,  Proc.  Roy.  Inst. 

\  Comparative  Zoology,  p.  165.  $  Sci.  Amer.,  Nov.  18,  1876,  p.  328. 

§  Marshall,  Outline  of  Physiology.     Amer.  Ed.,  1868,  p.  227. 
||  Macmillon's  Magazine,  Pop.  Sci.  Monthly,  April,  1876. 


118  THOUGHT    FORCE. 

of  recent  inquiries  into  the  structure  of  the  nervous  system  of 
animals,  converge  toward  the  conclusion  that  the  nerve-fibres 
which  we  have  hitherto  regarded  as  ultimate  elements  of  nervous 
tissue,  are  not  such,  but  are  simply  the  visible  aggregations  of 
vastly  more  attenuated  filaments,  the  diameter  of  which  dwindles 
down  to  the  limits  of  our  present  microscopic  vision,  greatly  as 
these  have  been  extended  by  modern  improvements  of  the  micro- 
scope ;  and  that  a  nerve  is,  in  its  essence,  nothing  but  a  linear 
tract  of  specially  modified  protoplasm  between  two  points  of  an 
organism,  one  of  which  is  able  to  affect  the  other  by  means  of 
the  communication  so  established.  Hence  it  is  conceivable  that 
even  the  simplest  living  being  may  possess  a  nervous  system." 

Herbert  Spencer*  says  all  direct  and  indirect  evidence  "justi- 
fies us  in  concluding  that  the  nervous  system  consists  of  one  kind 
of  matter.  In  the  gray  tissue  this  matter  exists  in  masses 
containing  corpuscles,  which  are  soft  and  have  granules  dispersed 
through  them,  and  which,  besides  being  thus  unstably  composed, 
are  placed  so  as  to  be  liable  to  disturbances  to  the  greatest 
degree.  In  the  white  tissue  this  matter  is  collected  together  in 
extremely  slender  threads  that  are  denser,  that  are  uniform  in 
texture,  and  that  are  shielded  in  an  unusual  manner  from 
disturbing  forces,  except  at  their  two  extremities." 

The  last  consideration  is  that  form  of  force  (thought  power) 
which  appears  in  manifestations  called  mental.  It  must  be 
noticed  at  the  outset,  that  every  external  manifestation  of 
thought  force  is  a  muscular  one,  as  a  word  spoken  or  written,  a 
gesture,  or  an  expression  of  the  face  always  takes  place  ;  hence 
this  force  must  be  intimately  correlated  to  nerve  force.  It  is 
very  certain,  then,  that  thought  force  is  capable  in  external 
manifestations  of  converting  itself  into  actual  motion.  But  here 
the  question  arises,  can  it  be  manifested  inwardly  without  such 

*  "  Principles  of  Psychology,"  1869,  No.  20,  p.  24. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  110 

a  transformation  of  energy  ?      Or  is  the  evolution  of  thought 
entirely  independent  of  the  matter  of  the  brain  ? 

This  question  can  be  answered  by  actual  experiment,  strange 
as  it  may  appear.  Experiments  have  demonstrated  that  any 
change  of  temperature  within  the  skull  was  soonest  manifested 
externally  in  that  depression  which  exists  just  above  the  occipital 
protuberance.  Here  Lombard*  fastened  to  the  head  at  this  point 
two  little  bars,  one  made  of  bismuth,  the  other  of  an  alloy  of 
antimony  and  zinc,  which  were  connected  with  a  delicate 
galvanometer ;  f  to  neutralize  the  result  of  a  gradual  rise  of 
temperature  over  the  whole  body,  a  second  pair  of  bars,  reversed 
in  direction,  was  attached  to  the  leg  or  arm,  so  that  if  a  like 
increase  of  heat  came  to  both,  the  electricity  developed  by  one 
would  be  neutralized  by  the  other,  and  no  effect  would  be  pro- 
duced by  the  needle  unless  only  one  was  affected.  By  long 
practice  it  was  ascertained  that  a  mental  torpor  could  be 
induced,  lasting  for  hours,  in  which  the  needle  remained  sta- 
tionary. But  let  a  person  knock  on  the  door  outside  of  the 
room,  or  speak  a  single  word,  even  though  the  experimenter 
remained  absolutely  passive,  the  reception  of  the  intelligence 
caused  the  needle  to  swing  twenty  degrees.  "  In  explanation  of 
this  production  of  heat,"  says  Barker,  J  "  the  analogy  of  the  muscle 
at  once  suggests  itself.  No  conversion  of  energy  is  complete, 
and  as  the  heat  of  muscular  action  represents  force  which  has 
escaped  conversion  into  motion,  so  the  heat  evolved  during  the 
reception  of  an  idea  is  energy  which  has  escaped  conversion 
into  thought,  from  precisely  the  same  cause."  Dr.  Lombard's 
experiments  have  shown  that  the  amount  of  heat  developed  by 

*  J.  S.  Lombard,  N.  Y.  Med.  Jour,  Vol.  V,  198,  June,  1867. 

f  Loc.  tit.,  p.  23. 

t  T^e  apparatus  employed  is  illustrated  and  fully  described  in  Brown- 
Sequard's  Archives  de  Pliys.,  Vol.  I,  498,  June,  1868.  By  it  the  l-4000th  of  a 
degree  Centigrade  may  be  indicated. 


120  THOUGHT    FORCE. 

the  recitatioD  to  one's  self  of  emotional  poetry,  was  in  every  case 
less  when  recitation  was  oral ;  this  is  of  course  accounted  for  by 
the  muscular  expression.  Chemistry  teaches  that  thought-force, 
like  muscle-force,  comes  from  the  food,  and  demonstrates  that 
the  force  evolved  by  the  brain,  like  that  produced  by  the  muscle, 
comes  not  from  the  disintegration  of  its  own  tissue,  but  is  the 
converted  energy  of  burning  carbon.*  "  Can  we  longer  doubt," 
says  Barker,  f  "  that  the  brain  too,  is  a  machine  for  the  conver- 
sion of  energy  ?  Can  we  longer  refuse  to  believe  that  even 
thought  force  is  in  some  mysterious  way  correlated  to  the  other 
natural  forces  ?  and  this  even  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  it  has 
never  yet  been  measured.^  Have  we  not  a  right  to  ask  '  why  a 
special  force  (vital  force)  should  be  needed  to  effect  the  trans- 
formation of  physical  forces  into  those  modes  of  energy  which 
are  active  in  the  manifestation  of  living  beings,  while  no  peculiar 
force  is  deemed  necessary  to  effect  the  transformation  of  one 
mode  of  physical  force  into  any  other  mode  of  physical  force  ?  " 

Kichard  Owen  says  :§  "  In  the  endeavor  to  clearly  compre- 
hend and  explain  the  functions  of  the  combination  of  forces 
called  <  brain/  the  physiologist  is  hindered  and  troubled  by  the 
views  of  the  nature  of  those  cerebral  forces  which  the  needs  of 
dogmatic  theology  have  imposed  on  mankind.  *  *  *  Keligion, 
pure  and  undefiled,  can  best  answer  how  far  it  is  righteous  or 
just  to  charge  a  neighbor  with  being  unsound  in  his  principles 
who  holds  the  term  '  life '  to  be  a  sound  expressing  the  sum  of 

*  L.  H.  Wood,  "  On  the  influence  of  mental  activity  on  the  excretion  of 
phosphoric  acid  by  the  kidneys."  Proc.  Conn.  Med.  Soc.,  Nov.,  1869,  p.  197. 

f  Loc.  cit. ,  p.  24. 

$  Address  of  Dr.  F.  A.  P.  Barnard,  as  retiring  president,  before  the  Am.  Ass. 
for  Adv.  of  Sci.,  Chicago  meeting,  Aug.  1868.  "  Thought  cannot  be  a  physical 
force,  because  thought  admits  of  no  measure." 

§  Derivation  hypothesis  of  life  and  species,  forming  fortieth  chapter  of  his 
Anatomy  of  Vertebrates,  republished  in  Am.  Jour.  Sci.,  II,  xlvii,  33,  Jan.  1869. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  121 

living  phenomena,  and  who  maintains  these  phenomena  to  be 
modes  of  force  into  which  other  forms  of  force  have  passed  from 
potential  to  active  states,  and  reciprocally,  through  the  agency  of 
the  sums  or  combinations  of  forces  impressing  the  mind  with 
the  ideas  signified  by  the  terms  '  monad,'  '  moss/  '  plant/  or 
'  animal/  " 

We  have  now  shown  that  the  very  forces  which  give  vent  to 
the  attributes  of  man,  are  correlated  to  the  physical  forces.  Let 
us  now  consider  his  attributes  as  manifested  by  his  mental 
powers.  There  is  no  doubt  the  difference  between  the  mental 
faculties  of  the  ape  and  that  of  the  lowest  savage,  who  cannot 
express  any  number  higher  than  four  and  who  uses  hardly  any 
abstract  terms  for  common  objects  or  for  the  affections,'"  is  still 
very  great  and  would  still  be  great,  says  Darwin,  "  even  if  one 
of  the  higher  apes  had  been  improved  or  civilized  as  much  as  a 
dog  has  been  in  comparison  with  its  parent  form,  the  wolf  or 
jackal."  But  when  we  examine  the  interval  of  mental  power 
between  one  of  the  lowest  fishes,  as  a  lamprey  or  a  lancelet,  and 
one  of  the  higher  apes,  and  recognize  the  fact  that  this  interval 
is  filled  up  by  numberless  gradations,  it  does  not  become  so 
difficult  to  understand  the  interval  between  an  ape  and  man, 
which  is  not  by  far  so  great.  As  in  finding  out  what  is  peculiar 
to  a  living  body  in  distinction  to  a  body  not  living,  we  found  it 
absurd  to  take  man  as  the  perfection  of  the  animal  scale — the 
microscopic  monad  possessing  life  as  well  as  him — so  in  the  case 
of  man's  mental  attributes,  which  have  always  been  increasing, 
always  perfecting,  since  the  first  genuine  man  came  into  existence, 
it  would  be  equally  absurd  to  compare  the  intellectual  man  of 
to-day  with  an  ape  to  see  what  attributes  he  possesses  which  the 
ape  docs  not  possess  ;  but  if  we  go  down  in  the  scale  and  com- 
pare the  savage  with  the  ape,  the  difficulty  is  not  by  far  so 

*  Prehistoric  Times,  p.  354,  by  Lubbock. 


122  THE    ATTRIBUTES    OF    ANIMALS. 

great.  It  will  be  found  on  close  examination,  though,  that  man 
and  the  higher  animals,  especially  the  primates,  have  many 
instincts  in  common.  "All,"  says  Darwin,  "have  the  same 
senses,  intuitions  and  sensations  ;  similar  passions,  affections, 
and  emotions  ;  even  the  more  complex  ones,  such  as  jealousy, 
suspicion,  emulation,  gratitude  and  magnanimity  ;  they  practice 
deceit  and  are  revengeful ;  they  are  sometimes  susceptible  to 
ridicule  and  even  have  a  sense  of  humor ;  they  feel  wonder  and 
curiosity  ;  they  possess  the  same  faculties  of  imitation,  atten- 
tion, deliberation,  choice,  memory,  imagination,  the  association 
of  ideas,  and  reason,  though  in  very  different  degrees.  The 
individuals  of  the  same  species  graduate  in  intellect  from 
absolute  imbecility  to  high  excellence  ;  they  are  also  liable  to 
insanity,  though  far  less  often  than  in  the  case  of  man.*  Never- 
theless, in  the  face  of  these  facts,  many  authors  have  insisted 
that  man  is  divided  by  an  inseparable  barrier  from  all  the  lower 
animals  in  his  mental  faculties.  It  only  shows  the  improper 
or  imperfect  consideration  of  the  subject  they  have  under 
discussion. 

It  may  be  thought  at  first  that  some  of  the  mental  attributes 
mentioned  above  are  not  possessed  by  animals.  I  therefore  will 
briefly  consider  a  few  of  the  more  complex  ones.  We  can  dis- 
miss the  consideration  of  such  attributes  as  happiness,  terror, 
suspicion,  courage,  timidity,  jealousy,  shame,  and  wonder,  as  well- 
known  attributes.  Curiosity  in  animals  is  often  observed.  An 
instance  mentioned  by  Brehm  will  serve  to  illustrate  :  Brehm 
gives  a  curious  account  of  the  instinctive  dread  which  his  monkeys 
exhibited  for  snakes  ;  but  their  curiosity  was  so  great  that  they 
could  not  desist  from  occasionally  satiating  their  horror  in  a  most 
human  fashion,  by  lifting  up  the  lid  of  the  box  in  which  the 
snakes  were  kept.  Imitation  is  also  found  among  the  action  of 
*  Madness  in  Animals,  Jour.  Mental  Sci.,  July,  1871.  Dr.  W.  L.  Lindsay. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  123 

animals,  especially  among  monkeys,  which  are  well  known  to  be 
ridiculous  mockers. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  refer  to  the  faculty  of  attention,  as  it  is 
common  to  almost  all  animals,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of 
memory  as  for  persons  or  places. 

One  would  hesitate  to  believe  an  animal  possesses  imagination, 
but  such  is  the  case.  Dreaming,  it  will  be  admitted,  gives  us  the 
best  notion  of  this  power.  Now  as  dogs,  cats,  horses,  and  prob- 
ably all  the  higher  animals,  even  birds,  have  vivid  dreams — this 
is  shown  by  thoir  movements  and  the  sounds  uttered — "we 
must  admit/'  says  Darwin,  "  they  possess  some  power  of  imagi- 
nation. There  must  be  something  special  which  causes  dogs 
to  howl  in  the  night,  and  especially  during  moonlight,  in  that 
remarkable  and  melancholy  manner,  called  baying.  All  dogs  do 
not  do  so  ;  and,  according  to  Housyeau,*  they  do  not  look  at 
the  moon,  but  at  some  fixed  point  near  the  horizon.  Housyeau 
thinks  that  their  imaginations  are  disturbed  by  the  vague  out- 
lines of  the  surrounding  objects,  and  conjure  up  before  them 
fantastic  images  ;  if  this  be  so,  their  feelings  may  almost  be 
called  superstitious." 

The  next  mental  faculty  is  reason,  which  stands  at  the  sum- 
mit ;  but  still  there  are  few  persons  who  will  deny  that  animals 
possess  some  power  of  reasoning.  A  few  illustrations  will  be  all 
that  is  necessary  to  satisfy  the  inquiring  mind  on  this  point. 
Reugger,  a  most  careful  observer,  states  that  when  he  first  gave 
eggs  to  his  monkey  in  Paraguay  they  smashed  them,  and  thus 
lost  much  of  their  contents  ;  afterward  they  gently  hit  one  end 
against  some  hard  body,  and  picked  off  the  bits  of  shell  with 
their  fingers.  After  cutting  themselves  once  with  any  sharp  tool, 
they  would  not  touch  it  again,  or  would  handle  it  with  the  great- 
est caution.  Lumps  of  sugar  were  often  given  them,  wrapped 
*  Facultes  Mentales  des  Animaux,  1872,  Tom.  XI,  p.  181. 


124:  THE    ATTRIBUTES    OF    ANIMALS. 

up  in  paper ;  and  Keugger  sometimes  put  a  live  wasp  in  the 
paper,  so  that  in  hastily  unfolding  it  they  got  stung ;  after  this 
had  once  happened,  they  afterward  first  held  the  packet  to  their 
ears  to  detect  any  movement  within. 

The  following  cases  relating  to  dogs  are  described  by  Darwin : 
Mr.  Colquhoun  winged  two  wild  ducks,  which  fell  on  the  farther 
side  of  a  stream  ;  his  retriever  tried  to  bring  over  both  at  once, 
but  could  not  succeed  ;  she  then,  though  never  before  known  to 
ruffle  a  feather,  deliberately  killed  one,  brought  over  the  other, 
and  returned  for  the  dead  bird.  Colonel  Hutchinson  relates  that 
two  partridges  were  shot  at  once — one  being  killed,  the  other 
wounded  ;  the  latter  ran  away,  and  was  caught  by  the  retriever, 
who,  on  her  return,  came  across  the  dead  bird  ;  "  she  stopped, 
evidently  greatly  puzzled,  and  after  one  or  two  trials,  finding  she 
could  not  take  it  up  without  permitting  the  escape  of  the  winged 
bird,  she  considered  a  moment,  then  deliberately  murdered  it  by 
giving  it  a  severe  crunch,  and  afterward  brought  away  both  to- 
gether. This  was  the  only  known  instance  of  her  ever  having 
wilfully  injured  any  game.  Here  we  have  reason,  though  not 
quite  perfect ;  for  the  retriever  might  have  brought  the  wounded 
bird  first,  and  then  returned  for  the  dead  one,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  two  wild  ducks.  I  give  the  above  cases  as  resting  on  the 
evidence  of  two  independent  witnesses;  and  because  in  both  in- 
stances the  retrievers,  after  deliberation,  broke  through  a  habit 
which  was  inherited  by  them  (that  of  not  killing  the  game  re- 
trieved), and  because  they  show  how  strong  their  reasoning  faculty 
must  have  been  to  overcome  a  fixed  habit."  * 

It  has  often  been  said  that  no  animal  uses  any  tool,  but  this 

can  be  so  easily  refuted  on  reflection,  that  it  is  hardly  worth  while 

considering  ;  for  illustration,  though,  the  chimpanzee  in  a  state  of 

nature  cracks  nuts  with  a  stone  ;  Darwin  saw  a  young  orang  put  a 

*  Primeval  Man,  1869,  pp.  145-147. 


WAS    MAN    GREAT 

stick  in  a  crevice,  slip  his  hand  to  the  other  end,  and  use  it  in  a 
proper  manner  as  a  lever.  The  baboons  in  Abyssinia  descend  in 
troops  from  the  mountains  to  plunder  fields,  and  when  they  meet 
troops  of  another  species  a  fight  ensues.  They  commence  by 
rolling  great  stones  at  their  enemies,  as  they  often  do  when 
attacked  with  fire-arms. 

The  Duke  of  Argyll  remarks  that  the  fashioning  of  an  imple- 
ment for  a  special  purpose  is  absolutely  peculiar  to  man  ;  and  he 
considers  this  forms  an  immeasurable  gulf  between  him  and  the 
brutes.  "  This  is  no  doubt,"  says  Darwin,  "  a  very  important 
distinction  ;  but  there  appears  to  me  much  truth  in  Sir  J.  Lub- 
bock's  suggestion,*  that  when  primeval  man  first  used  flint-stones 
for  any  purpose,  he  would  have  accidentally  splintered  them,  and 
would  then  have  used  the  sharp  fragments.  From  this  step  it 
would  be  a  small  one  to  break  the  flints  on  purpose,  and  not  a 
very  wide  step  to  fashion  them  rudely.  The  later  advance,  how- 
ever, may  have  taken  long  ages,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  immense 
interval  of  time  which  elapsed  before  the  men  of  the  neolithic 
period  took  to  grinding  and  polishing  their  stone  tools.  In  break- 
ing the  flints,  as  Sir  J.  Lubbock  likewise  remarks,  sparks  would 
>have  been  emitted,  and  in  grinding  them  heat  would  have  been 
evolved  ;  thus  the  two  usual  methods  of  '  obtaining  fire  may  have 
originated/  The  nature  of  fire  would  have  been  known  in  many 
volcanic  regions  where  lava  occasionally  flows  through  forests." 

It  becomes  a  difficult  task  to  determine  how  far  animals 
exhibit  any  traces  of  such  high  faculties  as  abstraction,  general 
conception,  self -consciousness,  mental  individuality.  There  can 
be  no  doubt,  if  the  mental  faculties  of  an  animal  can  be  improved, 
that  the  higher  complex  faculties  such  as  abstraction  and  self- 
consciousness  have  developed  from  a  combination  of  the  simpler 
ones  ;  this  seems  to  be  well  illustrated  in  the  young  child,  as 

*  Prehistoric  Times,  1865,  p.  473. 


126  THE    ATTRIBUTES    OF    A    SAVAGE. 

such  faculties  are  developed  by  imperceptible  degrees.  These 
high  faculties  are  very  sparingly  possessed  by  the  savage  ;  as 
Buchner*  has  remarked,  how  little  can  the  hard-worked  wife  of 
a  degraded  Australian  savage,  who  uses  very  few  abstract  words 
and  cannot  count  above  four,  exert  her  self-consciousness  or 
reflect  on  the  nature  of  her  own  existence.  If  there  exist  a 
class  of  people  so  inferior  in  their  mental  faculties  as  these,  it  is 
not  difficult  for  us  to  understand  how  the  educated  animal  who 
possesses  memory,  attention,  association,  and  even  some  imagina- 
tion and  reason,  can  become  capable  of  abstraction,  &c.,  in  an 
inferior  degree  even  to  the  savage.  It  certainly  cannot  be 
doubted  that  an  animal  possesses  mental  individuality — as  when 
a  master  returns  to  a  dog  which  he  has  not  seen  for  years,  and 
the  dog  recognizes  him  at  once. 

One  of  the  chief  distinctions  between  man  and  animals 
is  the  faculty  of  language.  Let  us  look  at  this  for  a 
moment.  "The  essential  differences,"  says  Prof.  Whitney, 
"which  separate  man's  means  of  communication  in  kind  as 
well  as  degree  from  that  of  the  other  animals  is  that, 
while  the  latter  is  instinctive,  the  former  is  in  all  its  parts 
arbitrary  and  conventional.  No  man  can  become  possessed  of 
any  language  without  learning  it ;  no  animal  (that  we  know  of) 
has  any  expression  which  he  learns,  which  is  not  the  direct  gift 
of  nature  to  him/'  Any  child  of  parents  living  in  a  foreign 
country  grows  up  to  speak  the  foreign  speech,  unless  carefully 
guarded  from  doing  so  ;  or  it  speaks  both  this  and  the  tongue  of 
its  parent  with  equal  readiness.  A  child  must  learn  to  observe 
and  distinguish  before  speech  is  possible,  and  every  child  begins 
to  know  things  by  their  name  before  he  begins  to  call  them. 
"If  it  were  not  for  the  added  push/'  says  Prof.  Whitney, 
"  given  by  the  desire  of  communication,  the  great  and  wonderful 
*  "  Conferences  ser  les  Theorie  Darwinienne,"  1869,  p.  132. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  127 

power  of  the  human  soul  would  never  move  in  this  particular 
direction  ;  but  when  this  leads  the  way,  all  the  rest  follows." 
No  philologist  now  supposes  that  any  language  has  been  delib- 
erately invented  ;  it  has  been  slowly  and  unconsciously  developed 
by  many  steps. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  language  owes  its  origin  to  the 
imitation  and  modification  of  various  natural  sounds,  the  voices 
of  other  animals,  arid  man's  own  instinctive  cries,  aided  by  signs 
and  gestures  ;  and  this  is  the  opinion  of  Max  Miiller.  And  Prof. 
Whitney  remarks  that  "  spoken  language  began,  we  may  say, 
when  a  cry  of  pain,  formally  wrung  out  by  real  suffering,  and 
seen  to  be  understood  and  sympathized  with,  was  repeated  in 
imitation,  no  longer  as  a  mere  instinctive  utterance,  but  for  the 
purpose  of  intimating  to  another."  Darwin  says  that  "the  early 
progenitor  of  man  probably  first  used  his  voice  in  producing  true 
musical  cadences,  that  is,  in  singing,  as  do  some  gibbon-apes  at 
the  present  day.  It  is  therefore  probable  that  the  imitation  of 
musical  cries  by  articulate  sounds  may  have  given  rise  to  words 
expressive  of  very  complex  emotions." 

The  nearest  approach  to  language  are  the  sounds  uttered  by 
birds.  All  that  sing  exert  their  power  instinctively,  but  the  ac- 
tual song,  and  even  the  call  notes,  are  learned  from  their  parents 
or  foster-parents.  These  sounds  are  no  more  innate  than  language 
is  in  man,  as  has  been  proved  by  Davies  Barrington.*  The  first 
attempt  to  sing  "  may  be  compared  to  the  imperfect  endeavor  in 
a  child  to  babble."  Prof.  Whitney  says,  if  the  last  transition 
forms  of  man  "  could  be  restored,  we  should  find  the  transition 
forms  toward  our  speech  to  be,  not  at  all  a  minor  provision  of 
natural  articulate  signs,  but  an  inferior  system  of  conventional 
signs,  in  tone,  gesture,  and  grimace.  As  between  these  three 
natural  means  of  expression,  it  is  simply  by  a  kind  of  process  of 

*  Philosopli.  Trans ,  1773,  p.  282. 


128  LANGUAGE. 

natural  selection  and  survival  of  the  fittest  that  the  voice  has 
gained  the  upper  hand,  and  come  to  be  so  much  the  most 
prominent  that  we  give  the  name  of  language  (tonguiness)  to  all 
expression."  A  single  utterance  or  two  at  first  had  to  do  the 
duty  of  a  whole  clause  ;  afterward  man  learned  to  piece  together 
parts  of  speech,  and  thus  arose  sentences. 

Although  no  language,  as  has  already  been  said,  has  been 
deliberately  invented,  "  still  each  word  may  not  be  unfitly  com- 
pared to  an  invention ;  it  has  its  own  place,  mode,  and  circum- 
stances of  devisal,  its  preparation  in  the  previous  habits  of  speech, 
its  influence  in  determining  the  after  progress  of  speech  develop- 
ment ;  but  every  language  in  the  gross  is  an  institution,  on  which 
scores  or  hundreds  of  generations  and  unnumbered  thousands  of 
individual  workers  have  labored."  * 

There  is  no  question  at  all  but  that  the  mental  powers  in  the 
earliest  progenitors  of  man  must  have  been  more  highly  developed 
than  in  the  ape,  before  even  the  most  imperfect  form  of  speech 
could  have  come  into  use  ;  but  the  constant  advancement  of  this 
power  would  have  reacted  on  the  mind  to  enable  it  to  carry  on 
longer  trains  of  thought.  "  A  complex  train  of  thought,"  says 
Darwin,  "  can  no  more  be  carried  on  without  the  aid  of  words, 
whether  spoken  or  silent,  than  a  long  calculation  without  the  use 
of  figures  in  algebra.  It  appears  also  that  even  an  ordinary  train 
of  thought  almost  requires  or  is  greatly  facilitated  by  some  form 
of  language  ;  for  the  dumb,  deaf,  and  blind  girl,  Laura  Bridg- 
man,  was  observed  to  use  her  fingers  while  dreaming.f  Never- 
theless a  long  succession  of  vivid  ideas  may  pass  through  the 
mind,  without  the  aid  of  any  form  of  language,  as  we  may  infer 
from  the  movements  of  dogs  during  their  dreams." 

The  struggle  for  existence  is  going  on  in  every  language  ;  one 

*  Prof.  Whitney,  p.  309. 

f  Phys.  and  Pathol.  of  Mind.     Dr.  Maudsley.     2d  ed.,  1868,  p.  199. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  129 

after  another  will  be  swept  out  of  existence,  and  the  languages 
best  fitted  for  the  practical  uses  of  the  masses  of  people  will  alone 
survive.  Max  Miiller  has  well  remarked  :  "A  struggle  for  life 
is  constantly  going  on  amongst  the  words  and  grammatical  forms 
in  each  language.  The  better  the  shorter  ;  the  easier  forms  are 
constantly  gaining  the  upper  hand,  and  they  owe  their  success  to 
their  own  inherent  virtue."  * 

It  must  not  be  thought  for  a  moment  that  that  which  dis- 
tinguishes a  man  from  the  lower  animals  is  the  understanding  of 
articulate  sounds — for,  as  every  one  knows,  dogs  understand 
many  words  and  sentences  ;  and  Darwin  says,  at  this  stage  they 
are  at  the  same  stage  of  development  as  infants,  between  the 
ages  of  ten  and  twelve  months,  who  understand  many  words  and 
sentences,  but  still  cannot  utter  a  single  word.  It  is  not  the 
mere  articulation  which  is  our  distinguishing  character ;  for 
parrots  and  other  birds  possess  the  power.  Nor  is  it  the  mere 
capacity  of  connecting  definite  sounds  with  definite  ideas  ;  for  it 
is  certain  that  some  parrots,  which  have  been  taught  to  speak, 
connect  unerringly  words  with  things,  and  persons  with  events." 
The  lower  animals,  as  has  already  been  stated,  differ  from  man 
solely  in  his  almost  infinitely  larger  power  of  associating  together 
the  most  diversified  sounds  and  ideas  ;  and  this  obviously  de- 
pends on  the  high  development  of  his  mental  powers. 

We  now  come  to  the  consideration  of  a  very  delicate  subject — 
a  subject  which  is  certainly  at  best  very  unsatisfactory  to  handle, 
as  far  as  popular  sentiment  is  concerned  ;  for,  no  matter  how 
successfully  it  may  be  handled,  according  to  one  class  of  thinkers, 
to  another  class  of  more  orthodox  thinkers  it  would  be  entirely 
at  fault.  The  subject  is,  Man's  Moral  Sense,  Belief  in  God) 
Religion,  Conscience,  and  Hope  of  Immortality. 

It  has  been  stated  by  some  writers  that  where  "  faith  com- 
*  Nature,  January  6,  1870,  p.  257. 


130  FAITH. 

mences  science  ends."  How  erroneous  is  such  a  statement  as 
this  !  for,  as  Krauth  has  said,  "  The  great  body  of  scientific  facts 
is  actually  the  object  of  knowledge  to  a  few,  and  is  supposed  to 
be  a  part  of  the  knowledge  of  the  many,  only  because  the  many 
have  faith  in  the  statements  of  the  few,  though  they  can  neither 
verify  them,  nor  even  understand  the  processes  by  which  they 
are  reached^"  * 

"We  believe,"  says  Lewes,  "that  the  sensation  of  violet  is 
produced  by  the  striking  of  the  ethereal  waves  against  the  retina 
more  than  seven  hundred  billions  of  times  in  a  second.  *  *  * 
These  statements  are  accepted  on  trust  by  us  who  know  that 
there  are  thinkers  for  whom  they  are  irresistible  conclusions."  It 
is  evident  that  it  is  to  faith  that  science  owes,  to  a  very  great 
extent,  her  progress  and  development  ;  for  it  is  impossible  for 
man  to  prove  by  experimental  demonstration  all  the  facts  of 
science,  and  since  a  certain  number  of  facts  have  got  to  be 
accepted  before  a  new  experiment  can  be  attempted,  he  has  to 
accept  on  faith  that  such  and  such  a  statement  is  a  fact,  because 
such  and  such  a  scientist  has  claimed  to  have  demonstrated  it. 
"  We  are  not  responsible  for  the  fact,"  says  Krauth,  "  that  under 
the  conditions  of  knowledge  we  know,  or  in  defect  of  them  do 
not  know  ;  we  are  responsible  if,  under  the  conditions  of  a  well- 
grounded  faith,  we  disbelieve."  f 

Let  us  look,  then,  at  the  belief  in  God.  The  question  under 
consideration  at  first  will  not  be  whether  there  exists  a  God,  the 
creator  and  ruler  of  the  universe — for  this  will  be  afterward  con- 
sidered— but  is  there  any  evidence  that  man  was  aboriginally 
endowed  with  the  ennobling  belief  in  the  existence  of  an  Om- 
nipotent God. 

Schweinfurth  relates  that  the  Niam-niam,  that  highly  inter- 

*  Problems  i.  21. 

f  Johnson's  Cyc.     Article  "  Faith."     C.  P.  Krauth. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  '131 

esting  dwarf  people  of  Central  Africa,  have  no  word  for  God, 
and  therefore,  it  must  be  supposed,  no  idea  ;  and  Moritz  Wagner 
has  given  a  whole  selection  of  reports  on  the  absence  of  religious 
consciousness  in  inferior  nations.  The  idea  that  conscience  is  a 
sort  of  permanent  inspiration  or  dwelling  of  God  in  the  soul,  I 
think,  on  consideration,  any  reasonable  man  will  not  assume. 
"It  is  a  purely  human  faculty,"  says  Savage,  "like  the  faculty 
for  art  or  music  ;  and  it  gets  its  authority,  as  they  do  by  being 
true,  and  just  in  so  far  as  it  is  true.  Consciousness  is  our  own 
knowledge  of  ourselves  and  of  the  relation  between  our  own 
faculties  and  powers.  Conscience  is  our  recognition  of  the  rela- 
tions, as  right  or  wrong,  in  which  we  stand  to  those  about  us, 
God  and  our  fellows.  Con-scio  is  to  know  with,  in  relation. 

There  is  such  a  thing,  of  course,  as  a  false  conscience  and  a 
true  conscience.  All  the  false  "  conscientiousness  grows  out  of 
the  fact  that  men  suppose  they  stand  in  certain  relationships  that 
do  not  really  exist.  Thus  they  imagined  duties  that  are  not 
duties  at  all."  The  virtues  which  must  be  practised  by  rude 
men,  so  that  they  can  hold  together  in  tribes,  are  of  course  im- 
portant. No  tribe  could  hold  together  if  robbery,  murder,  treach- 
ery, etc.,  were  common ;  in  other  words,  there  must  be  honor 
among  thieves.  "  A  North- American  Indian  is  well  pleased  with 
himself,  and  is  honored  by  others,  when  he  scalps  a  man  of 
another  tribe  ;  and  a  Dyak  cuts  off  the  head  of  an  unoffending 
person,  and  dries  it  as  a  trophy.  The  murder  of  infants  has 
prevailed  on  the  largest  scale  throughout  the  world,  and  has  been 
met  with  no  reproach  ;  but  infanticide,  especially  of  females,  has 
been  thought  to  be  good  for  the  tribe,  or  at  least  not  injurious. 
Suicide  during  former  times  was  not  generally  considered  as  a 
crime,  but  rather,  from  the  courage  displayed,  as  an  honorable 
act ;  and  it  is  still  practised  by  some  semi-civilized  and  savage 
nations  without  reproach,  for  it  does  not  obviously  concern  others 


132  TRUE    CONSCIENCE. 

of  the  tribe.  It  has  been  recorded  that  an  Indian  Thug  con- 
scientiously regretted  that  he  had  not  robbed  and  strangled  as 
many  travelers  as  did  his  father  before  him."  * 

See  how  weak  the  conscience  of  even  more  highly  civilized 
men  are  in  their  dealings  with  the  brute  creation  ;  how  the 
sportsman  delights  in  hunting-scenes,  Spanish  bull-fights,  cock- 
fights, etc. ;  how  indignant  was  the  sensitive  Cowper,  if  any  one 
should  "  needlessly  set  foot  upon  a  worm  "  !  The  rights  of  the 
worm  are  as  sacred  in  his  degree  as  ours  are,  and  a  true  conscience 
will  recognize  them.  What,  then,  is  a  true  conscience  ?  Savage 
states  in  a  few  words,  it  is  "  one  that  knows  and  is  adjusted 
to  the  realities  of  life.  When  men  know  the  truth  about  G-od, 
about  themselves — body  and  mind  and  spirit — about  the  real 
relations  of  equity  in  which  they  stand  to  their  fellow-men  in 
state  and  church  and  society,  and  when  they  appreciate  these, 
and  adjust  their  conscience  to  them,  then  they  will  have  a  true 
conscience.  An  absolutely  true  conscience,  of  course,  cannot 
exist  so  long  as  our  knowledge  of  the  reality  of  things  is  only 
partial." 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  the  conscience  of  man  depends  on  his 
education  and  environments,  and  therefore  is  the  subject  of  im- 
provement. It  becomes,  then,  the  duty  of  every  man  to  search 
for  truth,  for  his  conscience  is  not  infallible,  and  by  so  doing  he 
will  bring  it  to  accord  with  the  real  facts  of  God.  "Throw 
away,"  says  Savage,  "  prejudice  and  conceit,  seek  to  make  your 
conscience  like  the  magnetic  needle.  The  needle  ever  and  natu- 
rally seeking  the  unchanging  pole."  As  conscience,  then,  is  but 
a  faculty  capable  of  development,  it  is  not  so  difficult  to  under- 
stand a  race  of  people  whose  conscience  was  in  just  the  first 
stages  of  development ;  and,  finally,  a  race  which  did  not  possess 
this  faculty  at  all,  as  in  the  inferior  nations  which  Wagner 
speaks  of. 

*  Darwin's  Descent  of  Man,  p.  117. 


Fig.     I. 


FIG.  1.— Butcher's  Shop  of  the  Anziques,  Anno  1598. 
(From  Man's  Place  in  Nature,  by  Huxley.) 


134 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  135 

What  kind  of  conscience  and  intelligence  had  the  people 
near  Cape  Lopez,  called  the  Anziques,  which  M.  du  Chaillu 
describes.  They  had  incredible  ferocity  ;  for  they  ate  one  another, 
sparing  neither  friends  nor  relations.  Their  butcher-shops  were 
filled  with  human  flesh,  instead  of  that  of  oxen  or  sheep,  for 
they  ate  the  enemies  they  captured  in  battle.  They  fattened, 
slayed,  and  devoured  their  slaves  also,  unless  they  thought  they 
could  get  a  good  price  for  them  ;  and  moreover,  for  weariness  of 
life  or  desire  for  glory  (for  they  thought  it  a  great  thing  and  a 
sign  of  a  generous  soul  to  despise  life),  or  for  love  of  their  rulers, 
offered  themselves  up  for  food.  There  were,  indeed,  many  canni- 
bals, as  in  the  East  Indies  arid  Brazil  and  elsewhere,  but  none 
such  as  these,  since  the  others  only  ate  their  enemies,  but  these 
their  own  blood  relations. 

There  is  therefore,  combining  the  fact  mentioned  by  Wagner 
with  the  fact  that  some  nations  have  no  idea  of  one  or  more 
gods,  not  even  a  word  to  express  it  (proving  that  they  have  no 
idea),  I  say,  there  is  therefore  no  evidence  that  man  was  aborigi- 
nally endowed  with  any  such  belief  as  the  existence  of  an  Om- 
nipotent God  ;  and  in  this  assertion  almost  all  the  learned  men 
concur.  "If,  however,"  says  Darwin,  "we  include  under  the 
term  religion,  the  belief  in  unseen  or  spiritual  agencies,  the  case 
is  wholly  different ;  for  this  belief  seems  to  be  universal  with  the 
less  civilized  races.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  understand  how  it 
arose." 

The  savage  has  a  stronger  belief  in  bad  spirits  than  in  good 
ones.  "  The  same  high  mental  faculties  which  first  led  man  to 
believe  in  unseen  spiritual  agencies,  then  in  fetishism,  polytheism, 
and  ultimately  in  monotheism,  would  infallibly  lead  him,  as  long 
as  his  reasoning  powers  remained  poorly  developed,  to  very 
strange  superstitions  and  customs.  Many  of  these  are  terrible 
to  think  of :  such  as  the  sacrifice  of  human  beings  to  a  blood- 


136  BELIEFINGOD. 

loving  god,  the  trial  of  innocent  persons  by  the  ordeal  of  poison, 
of  fire,  of  witchcraft,  etc. ;  yet  it  is  well  occasionally  to  reflect 
on  these  superstitions,  for  they  show  us  what  an  infinite  debt  of 
gratitude  we  owe  to  the  improvement  of  our  reason,  to  science, 
and  to  our  accumulated  knowledge/'  *  As  Sir  J.  Lubbock  has 
well  observed :  "It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  possible 
dread  of  unknown  evil  hangs  like  a  thick  cloud  over  savage  life, 
and  embitters  every  pleasure.  These  miserable  and  indirect  con- 
sequences of  our  highest  faculties  may  be  compared  with  the 
incidental  and  occasional  mistakes  of  the  instincts  of  the  lower 
animals." 

The  belief,  then,  of  the  existence  of  an  Omnipotent  God 
came  with  the  development  of  the  mental  faculties  ;  and  although 
there  does  exist  such  a  belief  in  the  minds  of  men  whose  con- 
science is  in  a  normal  condition,  still  there  are  temptations  to 
unbelief,  and  these  have  led  men  to  atheism.  I  cannot  think 
of  an  atheist  unless  I  associate  in  my  thoughts  the  words  : 

'"  The  ruling  passion,  be  it  what  it  may — 
The  ruling  passion  conquers  reason  still. " 

The  atheist  has  decided  not  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  God, 
unless  he  can  see  Him  and  understand  Him  ;  in  other  words,  the 
finite  would  comprehend  the  infinite.  Following  the  logical 
method  of  reasoning  of  an  atheist,  the  simple  fact  of  seeing  God 
in  no  way  ought  to  prove  his  existence.  For  when  you  say  you 
see  a  person,  and  that  you  have  not  the  least  doubt  about  it,  I 
answer,  that  what  you  are  really  conscious  of  is  an  affection  of 
your  retina.  And  if  you  urge  that  you  can  check  your  sight  of 
the  person  by  touching  him,  I  would  answer,  that  you  are 
equally  transgressing  the  limits  of  fact ;  for  what  you  are  really 
conscious  of  is,  not  that  he  is  there,  but  that  the  nerves  of  your 
hand  have  undergone  a  change.  All  you  hear  and  see  and  touch 

*  See  Descent  of  Man,  p.  96. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  137 

and  taste  and  smell  are  mere  variations  of  your  own  condition, 
beyond  which,  even  to  the  extent  of  a  hair's-breadth,  you  cannot 
go.  That  anything  answering  to  your  impression  exists  outside 
of  yourself  is  not  a/acf,  but  an  inference,  to  which  all  validity 
would  be  denied  by  an  idealist  like  Berkeley,  or  by  a  skeptic  like 
Hume.* 

Thomas  Cooperf  said : 

"  I  do  not  say — there  is  no  God  ; 
But  this  I  say — I  KNOW  NOT." 

Mr.  Bradlaugh  says  :  "  The  atheist  does  not  say,  ( There  is  no 
God';  but  he  says,  I  know  not  what  you  mean  by  God ;  I  am 
without  idea  of  God  ;  the  word  l  God '  is  to  me  a  sound  convey- 
ing no  clear  or  distinct  affirmation.  I  do  not  deny  God,  because 
I  cannot  deny  that  of  which  I  have  no  conception,  and  the  con- 
ception of  which,  by  its  affirmer,  is  so  imperfect  that  he  is 
unable  to  define  it  to  me." 

Austin  Holyoakeif  says  :  "  The  only  way  of  proving  the  fallacy 
of  atheism  is  by  proving  the  existence  of  a  God." 

If  it  is  logical  proof  that  is  wanted,  there  is  plenty.  The 
following  arguments,  although  not  all  meeting  my  approbation, 
are  still  of  interest : 

The  Ontological  Argument  has  been  presented  in  different 
forms.  1.  Anselm,§  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (1093-1109), 
states  this  argument  thus  :  We  have  an  idea  of  an  infinitely 
perfect  being.  But  real  existence  is  an  element  of  infinite  per- 
fection. Therefore  an  infinitely  perfect  being  exists  ;  otherwise 
the  infinitely  perfect,  as  we  conceive  it,  would  lack  an  essential 
element  of  perfection. 

2.  Descartes||   (1596-1650)  states  the  argument  thus  :  The 

*  See  Tyndall's  Belfast  Address.  f  Purgatory  of  Suicides. 

%  Thoughts  on  Atheism,  p.  4.  §  Monologium  and  Proslogium. 

|  Meditations  de  Primaphilosophia  Prop.  2,  p.  89. 


PROOF    OF    THE    EXISTENCE    OF    GOD. 

idea  of  an  infinitely  perfect  being  which  we  possess  could  not 
have  originated  in  a  finite  source,  and  therefore  must  have  been 
communicated  by  an  infinitely  perfect  being. 

3.  Dr.  Samuel  Clark*  (1705)  argues  that  time  and  space  are 
infinite  and  necessarily  existent,  but  they  are  not  substances. 
Therefore  there  must  exist  an  eternal  and  infinite  substance  of 
which  they  are  properties. 

4.  Cousinf  maintained  that  the  idea  of  the  finite  implies  the 
idea  of  the  infinite  as  inevitably  as  the  idea  of  the  "  me  "  implies 
that  of  the  "  not  me." 

The  Cosmological  Argument  may  be  stated  thus  :  "  Every 
new  thing  and  every  change  in  a  previously  existing  thing  must 
have  a  cause  sufficient  and  pre-existing.  The  universe  consists 
of  a  series  of  changes.  Therefore  the  universe  must  have  a 
cause  exterior  and  anterior  to  itself. 

The  Teleological  Argument,  or  argument  from  design  or  final 
causes,  is  as  follows  :  Design,  or  the  adaptation  of  means  to  effect 
an  end,  implies  the  exercise  of  intelligence  and  free  choice.  The 
universe  is  full  of  traces  of  design.  Therefore  the  "  First  Cause  " 
must  have  been  a  personal  spirit. 

The  Moral  Argument  may  be  thus  stated  :  "In  looking  at 
the  works  of  God  there  is,"  says  Kev.  Dr.  Hopkins,  "  I  suppose, 
evidence  enough,  especially  if  interpreted  by  the  moral  conscious- 
ness, to  prove  to  a  candid  man  the  being  of  God."  The  educated 
man  is  a  religious  being.  The  instinct  of  prayer  and  worship, 
the  longing  for  and  faith  in  divine  love  and  help,  are  inseparable 
from  human  nature  under  normal  conditions,  as  known  in 
history. 

It  is  evident  from  the  above  that  it  is  not  for  logical  reasoning 
or  arguments  that  the  atheist  is  led  to  say,  "that  up  to  this 

*  Demonstration  of  the  Being  and  Attributes  of  God. 
f  Elements  of  Psychology. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  139 

moment  the  world  has  remained  without  knowledge  of  a  God."  * 
It  is  from  the  folly  of  his  heart ;  and,  as  Solomon  says,  that 
"  though  you  bray  him  and  his  false  logic  in  the  mortar  of  reason, 
among  the  wheat  of  facts,  with  the  pestle  of  argument,  yet  will 
not  his  folly  depart  from  him."  f  I  fully  agree  with  Hobbes 
when  he  says,  "  where  there  is  no  reason  for  our  belief,  there  is 
no  reason  we  should  believe,"  but  I  think  the  several  arguments 
given  above,  which  could  be  greatly  expanded,  affords  sufficient 
reason  for  a  perfect  belief  in  an  Infinite  God.  For— 

"  God  is  a  being,  and  that  you  may  see 
In  the  fold  of  the  flower,  in  the  leaf  of  the  tree, 
In  the  storm-cloud  of  darkness,  in  the  rainbow  of  life, 
In  the  sunlight  at  noontide,  in  the  darkness  of  night, 
In  the  wave  of  the  ocean,  in  the  furrow  of  land, 
In  the  mountain  of  granite,  in  the  atom  of  sand  ; 
Gaze  where  ye  may  from  the  sky  to  the  sod — 
Where  can  you  gaze  and  not  see  a  God." 

Yes,  the  infinite  God  must  include  all.  If  he  is  not  in  the  dust 
of  our  streets,  in  the  bricks  of  our  house,  in  the  beat  of  our 
hearts,  then  he  is  not  infinite,  but  is  finite,  having  boundaries. 
Yes,  God's  power  it  was  that  set  the  nebulous  mass  into  vibration, 
and  caused  the  world  to  be  formed  ;  it  was  His  force  which  first 
shaped  the  atoms  into  molecules,  and  then  into  more  complex 
chemical  products,  till  finally  "  organizable  protoplasm "  was 
reached,  which,  by  evolution,  climbed  up  to  man.  'Tis  God  we 
see  in  the  family,  in  society,  in  the  state,  in  all  religions,  up  to 
the  highest  outflowings  of  Christianity.  'Tis  Him  we  see  in  art, 
literature,  and  science;  and  so  proclaims  Evolution.  "God  is 
the  universal  causal  law  ;  God  is  the  source  of  all  force  and  all 
matter."  "  For  us,"  says  Haeckel,  "  all  nature  is  animated,  i.  e., 
penetrated  with  Divine  spirit,  with  law,  and  with  necessity." 
We  know  of  no  matter  without  this  Divine  spirit. 

*  Thoughts  on  Atheism,  by  Holyoake,  p.  4.  f  Proverbs  xvii.  22. 


140  UNITY    OF    ALL    NATURE. 

The  "ultimate  repulsion,  constituting  the  extension  and 
impenetrability  of  the  atoms  of  matter/'  says  Dr.  Samuel  Brown, 
"  could  be  conceived  of  in  no  other  way  than  as  the  persistent 
existence  of  the  will  of  God  himself,  in  whom  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being,  and  which,  if  but  for  an  instant  withdrawn, 
the  whole  material  universe  and  its  forces  in  all  their  vastness, 
glory,  and  beauty,  would  collapse  and  sink  in  a  moment  into  their 
original  nothingness." 

The  advancement  of  science,  instead  of  depriving  man  of  his 
God,  only  deprives  men  of  their  earlier  and  ruder  conceptions  of 
Deity,  only  to  impart  a  larger  and  grander  thought  of  Him.  "  It 
is  true,  in  the  educational  process  some  few  minds  have  lost  sight 
of  Him  altogether,  but  these  are  the  exceptional,  and  therefore 
notable  instances  ;  with  the  great  body  of  men,  the  conception 
of  God  has  steadily  enlarged  with  the  progress  of  science."  *  If 
science  can  demonstrate  that  Evolution  is  true,  then  it  is  God's 
truth,  and  as  such  it  is  man's  religious  duty  .to  accept  it ;  if  he 
rejects  it,  superstitiously  or  unreasonably,  he  not  only  defrauds 
himself  but  insults  the  Author  of  truth. 

What,  then,  has  science  demonstrated  ?  Science  has  demon- 
strated the  UNITY  OF  THE  FORCES  :  Light,  heat,  electricity, 
magnetism,  motion,  are  all  correlated  to  one  another,  and  are  all 
mutually  convertible  one  into  another.  Heat  may  be  said  to 
produce  electricity — electricity  to  produce  heat ;  magnetism  to 
produce  electricity — electricity,  magnetism,  and  so  on  for  the  rest. 

UNITY  or  MATTER  AND  FORCE. — "  For  if  matter  were  not 
force,  and  immediately  known  as  force,  it  could  not  be  known  at 
all — could  not  be  rationally  inferred." 

UNITY  OF  THE  LIFE  SUBSTANCE  IN  ALL  ORGANIC  AND  ANIMAL 
BODIES. — "  A  unity  of  power  or  faculty,  a  unity  of  form,  and  a 
unity  of  substantial  composition." 

*  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  141 

UNITY  OF  ANIMATE  AND  INANIMATE  NATURE  IN  MATTER, 
FORM,  AND  FORCE. 

UNITY  OF  THE  LAWS  OF  DEVELOPMENT. — Hence  we  can  pro- 
claim the  unity  of  all  nature  and  of  her  laws  of  development. 

In  the  beautiful  words  of  Giordano  Bruno  :  "  A  spirit  exists 
in  all  things,  and  no  body  is  so  small  but  contains  a  part  of  the 
divine  substance  within  itself,  by  which  it  is  animated."  Hence 
we  arrive  at  the  sublime  idea,  since  we  can  in  no  other  way  ac- 
count for  the  ultimate  cause  of  anything,  that  it  is  God's  spirit 
which  pervades  and  sustains  all  nature.  By  this  admission  we 
are  not  led  to  say  :  "  There  is  no  God  but  force  ;"  but  rather, 
"There  is  no  force  but  God."  God  is  infinite,  and  therefore 
includes  nature  ;  but  is  nature  all  ?  It  is  all  that  our  finite 
minds  can  discover,  'tis  true  ;  but  can  there  not  exist  another 
nature  or  world  unknown  to  us  ;  and  if  so,  since  God  is  infinite, 
he  will  include  that  world  also.  Let  us  look  to  this  and  see  what 
science  can  answer. 

It  will  be  necessary  for  us  to  consider  before  proceeding,  what 
is  meant  by  the  term  soul ;  and  this  becomes  a  somewhat  difficult 
task,  as  the  term  has  been  variously  applied  to  signify  the  prin- 
ciple of  life  in  an  organic  body,  or  the  first  and  most  undeveloped 
stages  of  individualized  spiritual  being,  or  finally,  all  stages  of 
spiritual  individuality,  incorporeal  as  well  as  corporeal.*  The 
popular  belief  is,  that  the  soul  is  not  material  but  substantial,  a 
divine  gift  to  the  highest  alone  of  God's  creatures  ;  but  scientific 
men,  such  as  Carl  Vogt,  Moleschott,  Buchner,  Schmidt,  Haeckel, 
consider  the  phenomena  of  the  soul  to  be  functions  of  the  brain 
and  nerves.  Schmidt  says :  "  The  soul  of  the  new-born  infant 
is,  in  its  manifestations,  in  no  way  different  from  that  of  the 
young  animal.  These  are  the  functions  of  the  infantine  nervous 
system,  with  this  they  grow  and  are  developed  together  with 
speech." 

*  See  W.  T.  Harris.     Johnson's  Encyc.    "  Soul." 


142  SOUL. 

The  idea  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  was  not  aboriginal 
with  mankind,  as  Sir  J.  Lubbock  has  shown  that  the  barbarous 
races  possess  no  clear  belief  of  this  kind,  and  Kajah  Brook,  at  a 
missionary  meeting  in  Liverpool,  told  his  hearers  there  that  the 
Dyaks,  a  people  with  whom  he  was  connected,  had  no  knowledge 
of  God,  of  a  soul,  or  of  any  future  state. 

Darwin  remarks,  that  "man  may  be  excused  for  feeling 
some  pride  at  having  risen,  though  not  through  his  own  exer- 
tions, to  the  very  summit  of  the  organic  scale  ;  and  the  fact  of 
his  having  thus  risen,  instead  of  having  been  aboriginally  placed 
there,  may  give  hope  for  a  still  higher  destiny  in  the  distant 
future." 

The  belief  in  a  future  life  amongst  the  civilized  race  of  man- 
kind is  almost  universally  prevalent.  The  proofs  of  immortality 
are  various.  The  desire  that  man  has  to  live  forever  and  his 
horror  of  annihilation  is  one  ;  the  good  suffer  in  this  world  and 
the  wicked  triumph — this  would  indicate  the  necessity  of  future 
retribution.  The  infinite  perfectibility  of  the  human  mind 
never  reaches  its  full  capacity  in  this  life  ;  the  faculty  of  insight 
which  sees  in  an  individual  all  its  past  history  at  a  glance  is  the 
immortal  attribute  and  is  continually  on  the  increase  ;  and  it  is 
possible  that  Aristotle  was  right  so  far  as  he  stated  that  the 
lower  faculties  of  the  soul,  such  as  sensation,  imagination, 
feeling,  memory,  etc.,  are  perishable.  No  matter  if  this  be  so  or 
not,  it  is  certain  that  in  the  next  life,  where  all  is  perfection, 
only  the  fittest  attributes  will  exist,  the  others  would  have 
perished.  The  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  has  been 
defended  by  Marhemeke,  Blasche,  Weisse,  Hinnichs,,  Fecham, 
J.  H.  Fichte,  and  others. 

Let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  visible  universe  and  see  if  it 
is  not  reasonable,  on  a  scientific  basis,  to  admit  of  the  existence 
of  another  universe,  although  it  remains  unseen  to  us.  One  can 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  143 

not  help  but  be  struck  with  the  fact  that  energy  is  being 
dissipated  in  this  visible  universe,  that  the  visible  universe  is 
apparently  very  wasteful.  Look  at  the  sun  which  pours  her 
vast  store  of  high-class  energy  into  space,  at  the  rate  of  185,000 
miles  per  second.  What  will  be  the  result  of  this  ?  The  answer 
is  simple:  The  inevitable  destruction  of  the  visible  universe. 
Yes,  just  as  the  visible  universe  had  its  beginning  it  will  have 
its  end.  But  there  existed  a  power  before  the  visible  universe 
came  into  existence,  and  which  is  acting  in  the  visible  universe 
as  the  ultimate  cause  of  all  phenomena.  "  For  we  are  obliged," 
says  Herbert  Spencer  in  his  First  Principles,  "  to  regard  every 
phenomenon  as  a  manifestation  of  some  power  by  which  we  are 
acted  upon  ;  though  omnipresence  is  unthinkable,  yet,  as  experi- 
ence discloses  no  bounds  to  the  diffusion  of  phenomena,  we  are 
unable  to  think  of  limits  to  the  presence  of  this  power,  while  the 
criticisms  of  science  teaches  us  that  this  power  is  incomprehensi- 
ble." And  so  we  should  expect,  for  a  finite  cannot  comprehend 
an  infinite.  It  is  for  this  and  other  reasons  one  is  led  to  believe 
that  the  visible  universe  is  only  an  infinitesimal  part  of  "  that 
stupendous  whole  which  is  alone  entitled  to  be  called  THE 
UNIVERSE."  *  As  there  existed  an  invisible  universe  before  the 
visible  one  came  into  existence,  we  can  conclude  that  there  still 
exists  an  invisible  universe  now,  and  that  this  invisible  universe 
will  still  exist  when  the  present  visible  one  has  passed  away. 
Let  us  see  what  light  our  finite  senses  can  throw  on  this.  *  It  is 
.well  known  that  all  our  senses  have  only  a  certain  narrow  gauge 
within  which  they  are  able  to  bring  us  into  sensible  contact  with 
the  world  about  us.  All  outside  this  range  we  are  unable  to 
reach.  For  example,  we  do  not  see  all  forms  and  colors  ;  we  do 
not  hear  all  sounds  ;  we  do  not  smell  all  odors  ;  we  cannot  con- 
scientiously touch  all  substances  ;  we  cannot  taste  all  flavors. 

*  Unseen  Universe. 


THE    FINITE     SENSES    OF    MAN. 

Vision  depends  on  the  wave  motion  of  light.  The  length  of  a 
wave  of  mean  red  light  is  about  s-gj^th  of  an  inch,  that  of 
violet  -gvsfro^1  °f  an  mcn*  But  the  number  of  oscillations  of 
ether  in  a  second,  necessary  to  produce  the  sensation  of  red,  are 
477,000,000,000,000,  all  of  which  enter  the  eye  in  one  second. 
For  the  sensation  of  violet,  the  eye  must  receive  699,000,000,- 
000,000  oscillations  in  one  second,  as  light  travels  185,000  miles 
in  one  second.  But  when  waves  of  light  having  all  possible 
lengths  act  on  the  eye  simultaneously,  the  sensation  of  white  is 
produced.  So,  as  has  been  previously  stated,  without  eyes  the 
world  would  be  wrapped  in  darkness,  there  being  no  light  and 
color  outside  of  one's  eye.  So  we  see  our  sense  of  sight  has  its 
limits,  and  we  know  how  finite  these  are.  That  there  are  vibra- 
tions of  the  ether  on  each  side  of  our  limits  of  vision  cannot  be 
doubted  ;  and  if  our  eyes  were  acute  enough  to  receive  them, 
we  could  have  the  sensation  of  some  color,  which  must  under 
present  conditions  remain  forever  blank.  The  owl  and  bat  can 
see  when  we  cannot  ;  their  eyes  can  receive  oscillations  of  ether, 
which  pass  by  without  affecting  us.  So  with  sound,  which  "  is 
a  sensation  produced  when  vibrations  of  a  certain  character  are 
excited  in  the  auditory  apparatus  of  the  ear."  *  The  longest 
wave  which  can  give  an  impression  has  a  length  of  about  66  ft., 
which  is  equal  to  16J  vibrations  per  second  ;  when  the  wave  is 
reduced  to  three  or  four  tenths  of  an  inch,  equal  to  from  38,000 
to  40,000  vibrations  per  second,  sound  becomes  again  inaudible.' 
The  piano,  for  instance,  only  runs  between  27^  vibrations  in  a 
second  up  to  3,520.  Sound  travels  about  1,093  feet  per  second, 
and  the  human  voice  can  be  heard  460  feet  away,  whilst  a  rifle 
can  be  heard  16,000  feet  (3.02  miles),  and  very  strong  cannonading 
575,840  feet,  or  90  miles.  That  there  are  vibrations  above  and 
below  16^  and  40,000,  there  is  no  room  to  doubt,  as  there  exist 
*  Rood.  "  Sound, "  Johnson's  Encyc. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  14.5 

ears  which  can  hear  them,  such  as  the  hare  ;  but  to  us  they  are 
as  though  they  did  not  exist. 

Of  all  our  senses,  the  sense  of  smell  far  surpasses  that  of  the 
other  sense.  Valentine  has  calculated  that  we  are  able  to  per- 
ceive about  the  three  one-hundred-millionth  of  a  grain  of  musk. 
The  minute  particle  which  we  perceive  by  smell,  no  chemical 
reaction  can  detect,  and  even  spectrum  analysis,  which  can 
recognize  fifteen-millionths  of  a  grain,  is  far  surpassed.  But 
this  sense  in  man  is  far  surpassed  by  the  hound. 

Our  sense  of  taste  is  also  limited,  and  as  has  been  already 
stated,  cannot  distinguish  all  flavors.  We  can  recognize  by  taste 
one  part  of  sulphuric  acid  in  1000  parts  of  water  ;  one  drop  of 
this  on  the  tongue  would  contain  ^u  °f  a  gram  (ifa  of  a  grain) 
of  sulphuric  acid.  The  length  of  time  needed  for  reaction  in 
sensation  has  been  determined  by  Vintschgau  and  Hougschmied, 
and  in  a  person  whose  sense  of  taste  was  highly  developed,  the 
reaction  time  was,  for  common  salt,  0.159  second  ;  for  sugar, 
0.1639  second ;  for  acid,  0.1676  second  ;  and  for  quinine,  0.2351 
second. 

Reviewing,  then,  the  above,  it  is  evident  there  are  eyes  which 
can  see  what  we  cannot,  there  are  ears  which  can  hear  what  we 
cannot,  and  there  are  animals  who  can  smell  and  touch  what  we 
cannot.  "  For  anything  we  know  to  the  contrary,  then,"  says 
Savage,  "  a  refined  and  spiritualized  order  of  existences  may  be 
the  inhabitants  of  another  and  unseen  world  all  about  us."  As 
Milton  has  said : 

"  Millions  of  spiritual  creatures  walk  the  earth 
Unseen,  both  when  we  wake  and  when  we  sleep." 

If  there  is  a  life  very  much  different  from  and  very  much  higher 
than  our  present  one,  it  is  not  strange  we  are  ignorant  of  it.  It 
is  impossible  to  make  a  person  understand  anything  which  is 
entirely  unlike  all  that  has  ever  been  seen  or  heard,  for  every  idea 


146  THE    FINITE    SENSES    OF    MAN. 

in  the  world  that  man  has  came  to  him  by  nature.  Man*  can- 
not conceive  of  anything  the  hint  of  which  has  not  been  received 
from  his  surroundings.  He  can  imagine  an  animal  with  the  hoof 
of  a  bison,  with  the  pouch  of  a  kangaroo,  with  the  wings  of  an 
eagle,  with  the  beak  of  a  bird,  and  with  the  tail  of  a  lion  ;  and 
yet  every  point  of  this  monster  he  borrowed  from  nature.  Every- 
thing he  can  think  of,  everything  he  can  dream  of,  is  borrowed 
from  his  surroundings — everything.  "  So,  if  an  angel  should 
come  and  tell  of  another  life,  it  would  mean  nothing  to  us, 
unless  we  could  translate  it  into  terms  of  our  own  experience. 
We  could  not  understand  a  'light  that  never  was  on  land  or 
sea/  Our  ignorance  is  not  even  then  a  probability  against  our 

belief/7 1 

As  has  already  been  stated,  the  visible  universe  must  have 
its  doom,  must  end  as  it  began,  by  consisting  of  a  single  mass  of 
matter  ;  but  is  there  not  a  more  primitive  state  of  matter  than 
the  matter  .such  as  we  know  it  ?  Yes  ;  and  the  so-called  ether 
is  that  matter.  It  is  unlike  any  of  the  forms  of  matter  which 
we  can  weigh  and  measure.  It  is  in  some  respects  like  unto 
a  fluid,  and  in  some  respects  like  unto  a  solid.  It  is  both  hard 
and  elastic  to  an  almost  inconceivable  degree.  "  It  fills  all  ma- 
terial bodies  like  a  sea  in  which  the  atoms  of  the  material  bodies 
are  as  islands,  and  it  occupies  the  whole  of  what  we  call  empty 
space.  It  is  so  sensitive  that  a  disturbance  in  any  part  of  it 
causes  a  '  tremor  which  is  felt  on  the  surface  of  countless  worlds/ 
It  exerts  frictions  ;  and  although  the  friction  is  infinitely  small, 
yet  as  it  has  an  almost  infinite  time  to  work  in,  it  will  diminish 
the  momentum  of  the  planets,  and  diminish  their  ability  to 
maintain  their  distance  from  the  sun,  the  consequence  of  which 
will  be  the  planets  will  fall  into  the  sun,  and  the  solar  system 
will  end  where  it  begun." £ 

*  See  R.  G.  Ingersoll's  Lecture  on  Hell.  f  Savage. 

i  "  The  Unseen  World."     John  Fiske,  p.  21. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  147 

According  to  Sir  William  Thompson,  the  ultimate  atoms  of 
matter  are  vortex  rings,  which  Professor  Clifford  describes  as 
being  more  closely  packed  together  (finer  grained)  in  ether  than 
in  matter.  And  he  says,  "  whateverlmay  turn  out  to  be  the  ulti- 
mate nature  of  the  ether  and  of  molecules,  we  know  that  to  some 
extent  at  least  they  obey  the  same  dynamic  laws,  and  that  they 
act  on  one  another  in  accordance  with  these  laws.  Until  there- 
fore it  is  absolutely  disproved,  it  must  remain  the  simplest  and 
most  probable  assumption  that  they  are  finally  made  of  the  same 
stuff,  that  the  material  molecule  is  in  some  kind  of  knot  or 
coagulation  of  ether."  * 

The  molecule  of  matter  such  as  we  know,  then,  may  have 
been,  and  very  probably  was,  produced  by  evolution  from  the 
atoms  or  vortex  rings  of  ether,  according  to  the  theory  advanced 
by  the  authors  of  the  work  called  the  "  Unseen  Universe/'  which 
I  have  referred  to.  The  world  of  ether  is  to  be  regarded  in  some 
sort  the  obverse  complement  of  the  world  of  sensible  matter,  so 
that  whatever  energy  is  dissipated  in  the  one  is  by  the  same  act 
accumulated  in  the  other  ;  or,  as  Fiske  describes  it,  "  it  is  like  the 
negative  plate  in  photography,  where  light  answers  to  shadow 
and  shadow  to  light/'  Every  act  of  consciousness  is  accompanied 
by  molecular  displacements  in  the  brain,  and  these  of  course  are 
responded  to  by  movements  in  the  ethereal  world.  Views  of  this 
kind  were  long  ago  entertained  by  Babbage,  and  they  have  since 
recommended  themselves  to  other  men  of  science,  and  amongst 
others  to  Jevon,  who  says  :  "  Mr.  Babbage  has  pointed  out  that 
if  we  had  power  to  follow  and  detect  the  manifest  effects  of  any 
disturbance,  each  particle  of  existing  matter  must  be  a  register 
of  all  that  has  happened.  *  *  *  The  air  itself  is  one  vast 
library  on  whose  pages  are  forever  written  all  that  man  has  ever 
said  or  whispered.  There  in  their  mutable  but  unerring  charac- 
*  Fortnightly  Keview,  June  1875,  p.  784. 


148  THE    UNSEEN    UNIVERSE. 

ters,  mixed  with  the  earliest  as  well  as  the  latest  sighs  of  mor- 
tality, stand  forever  recorded  vows  unredeemed,  promises  unful- 
filled, perpetuating  in  the  united  movements  of  each  particle  the 
testimony  of  man's  changeful  will."  * 

So  thought  affects  the  substance  of  the  present  visible  uni- 
verse ;  it  produces  a  material  organ  of  memory.  "  But  the 
motions  which  accompany  thought,"  say  the  authors,f  "will 
also  affect  the  invisible  order  of  things,"  and  thus  it  follows 
that  "thought  conceived  to  affect  the  matter  of  another  universe, 
simultaneously  with  this,  may  explain  a  future  state."f 

Death,  then,  is  for  the  individual  but  a  transfer  from 
one  physical  state  of  existence  to  another,  according  to  the 
"  authors'  "§  idea;  and  so,  on  the  largest  scale,  the  death 
or  final  loss  of  energy  by  the  whole  visible  universe  has  its 
counterpart  in  the  acquirement  of  a  maximum  of  life,  the 
correlative  unseen  world.  According  to  this  theory,  therefore, 
as  the  psychical  or  spiritual  phenomena  of  the  visible  world 
only  begins  to  be  manifested  with  some  complex  aggregate 
of  material  phenomena,  therefore  it  is  necessary  for  the  continu- 
ance of  mind  in  a  future  state  to  have  some  sort  of  material 
vehicle  also,  which  the  ether  is  supposed  to  supply.  "  The 
essential  weakness  of  such  a  theory  as  this,"  says  Fiske,  "  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  is  thoroughly  materialistic  in  character.  We 
have  reason  for  thinking  it  probable  that  ether  and  ordinary 
matter  are  alike  composed  of  vortex  rings  in  a  quasi-frictionless 
fluid ;  but  whatever  be  the  fate  of  this  subtle  hypothesis,  we 
may  be  sure  that  no  theory  will  ever  be  entertained  in  which 
analysis  of  ether  shall  require  different  symbols  from  that  of  ordi- 
nary matter.  In  our  authors'  theory,  therefore,  the  putting  on 
of  immortality  is  in  nowise  the  passage  from  a  material  to  a 

*  Ninth  Bridgewater  Treatise.  f  Of  the  Unseen  Universe. 

|  Anagram.    Nature,  Oct.  15, 1874.  §  Of  the  Unseen  Universe. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  149 

spiritual  state.  It  is  the  passage  of  one  kind  of  materially  con- 
ditioned state  to  another/'  This  theory,  dealing  with  matter, 
should  receive  support  by  actual  experience,  as  matter  is  a  sub- 
ject of  investigation.  To  accept  it,  therefore,  as  being  possible 
without  any  positive  evidence  for  its  support,  it  remains  but  a 
weak  speculation,  no  matter  how  ingenious  it  may  seem. 

To  support  an  after  life,  which  is  not  materially  conditioned, 
I  agree  with  Mr.  Fiske,  that  although  it  will  be  unsupported  by 
any  item  of  experience  whatever,  it  may  nevertheless  be  an  im- 
pregnable assertion. 

If  all  were  to  agree,  what  we  call  matter  is  really  force, 
as  it  certainly  is,  for  if  matter  were  not  force  it  would  be 
unthinkable,  being  force  it  becomes  thinkable ;  this  point  I 
have  touched  on  before,  but  it  may  be  well  to  elaborate  on  it 
a  little  just  here.  The  great  lesson  that  Berkeley  taught  man- 
kind was  that  what  we  call  material  phenomena  are  really  the 
products  of  consciousness  co-operating  with  some  unknown  power 
(not  material)  existing  beyond  consciousness.  "  We  do  very  well 
to  speak  of  matter,"  says  Fiske,  "  in  common  parlance,  but  all 
that  the  word  really  means  is  a  group  of  qualities  which  have  no 
existence  apart  from  our  minds."  The  ablest  modern  thinkers, 
then,  believe  that  the  only  real  things  that  exist  are  the  mind 
and  God,  and  that  the  universe  is  only  the  infinitely  varied 
manifestation  of  God  in  the  human  conscience.  It  is  evident, 
then,  that  matter,  the  only  thing  the  materialist  concedes  real 
existence,  is  simply  an  orderly  phantasmagoria ;  and  God  and 
soul,  which  materialists  regard  as  mere  fictions  of  the  imagina- 
tion, are  tn"e  only  conceptions  that  answer  to  real  existence.* 

For  instance,  let  us  see  what  it  is  we  know  about  a  table. 
You  say  you  can  see  it ;  I  can  respond  that  all  you  are  conscious 
of  is  that  the  nerves  of  your  eye  have  undergone  a  change.  You 
*  Fiske.  Unseen  World,  p.  52. 


150  MANIFESTATIONS    OF    GOD. 

say,  I  can  check  my  sight  of  it  by  touching  it ;  to  this  I  reply,  all 
that  you  are  really  conscious  of  is  a  sensation,  and  that  some- 
thing outside  of  you  has  produced  it.  But  that  all  that  is 
outside  of  me  is  anything  more  than  the  manifestation  to  me  of 
a  power  or  of  God,  is  an  inference  and  cannot  be  proven. 
To  constant  manifestations  of  this  power,  always  assuming  the 
same  form  and  characters  which  can  be  studied,  different  names 
have  been  given  ;  but  that  the  dust  of  the  street  or  beat  of  our 
heart  is  anything  else  but  that  peculiar  manifestation  of  the 
infinite  God,  cannot  be  contradicted. 

Mr.  Savage  pays,  "The  movement  of  electricity  along  a 
telegraph-line  is  accompanied  by  certain  molecular  changes  in 
the  wire  itself;  but  the  wire  is  not  electricity,  neither  does  it 
produce  it.  Thus  modern  science  has  found  it  utterly  impossible 
to  explain  mind  either  as  a  part  or  a  product  of  matter.  It  is 
perfectly  reasonable,  then,  for  any  man  to  believe  in  a  purely 
intellectual  and  spiritual  existence,  apart  from  any  material 
form  or  substance." 

To  comprehend  the  immortal  life  is  an  impossibility  ;  it  tran- 
scends any  earthly  experience  of  man.  The  caterpillar  probably 
knows  nothing  about  any  life  higher  than  that  of  his  toilsome 
crawling  on  the  ground  ;  but  that  is  no  proof  against  the  fact 
that  we  know  he  is  to  become  a  butterfly.  The  boy  knows 
nothing  about  manhood,  and  cannot  know.  Though  he  sees 
men  and  their  labors  all  about  him,  he  has  and  can  have  no 
conception  whatever  of  what  it  means  to  be  a  man  ;  it  tran- 
scends all  experience.*  "  The  existence,"  says  Fiske,  "  of  a 
single  soul,  or  congeries  of  psychical  phenomena,  unaccompanied 
by  a  material  body,  would  be  evidence  sufficient  to  demonstrate 
this  hypothesis.  But  in  the  nature  of  things,  even  were  there 
a  million  such  souls  round  about  us,  we  could  not  become  aware 
*  Savage.  Relig.  of  Evol.,  p.  246. 


WAS    MAN    CREATED?  151 

of  the  existence  of  one  of  them  ;  for  we  have  no  organ  or  faculty 
for  the  perception  of  soul  apart  from  the  material  structure  and 
activities  in  which  it  has  been  manifested  throughout  the  whole 
course  of  our  experience.  Even  our  own  self-consciousness 
involves  the  consciousness  of  ourselves  as  partly  material  bodies. 
These  considerations  show  that  our  hypothesis  is  very  different 
from  the  ordinary  hypothesis  with  which  science  deals.  The 
entire  absence  of  testimony  does  not  raise  a  negative  presump- 
tion, except  in  cases  where  testimony  is  accessible." 

My  object  has  not  been  to  prove  the  purely  spiritual  theory 
of  a  future  life,  but  to  show  that  it  is  a  theory  that  intelligent 
people  can  entertain  as  a  foundation  for  their  belief  "  in  the  hope  of 
immortality."  But  that  the  spiritual  life  instead  of  the  material 
life  is  the  state  in  which  we  can  hope  for  immortality,  I  think 
there  can  be  no  question  ;  and  such  was  the  opinion  of  Paul* 
when  he  wrote  :  "  Now  this  I  say,  brethren,  that  flesh  and  blood 
cannot  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God,  neither  does  corruption 
inherit  incorruption.  ...  So  when  this  corruptible  shall 
have  put  on  incorruption,  and  this  mortal  shall  have  put  on 
immortality,  then  shall  be  brought  to  pass  the  saying  that  is 
written,  '  Death  is  swallowed  up  in  victory/ 

O  death,  where  is  thy  sting  ? 
O  grave,  where  is  thy  victory?" 

*  1  Corinthians,  xv.,  verses  50-54  (Part  of).    Eevised  English  Ed.,  1877. 


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